Timeline of Poets
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645BC Archilochus (b.~680BC), Greek poet (Archilochos, Archilocos), died about this time. He lived on the island of Paros and his innovative poetry, in various meters, was the first to focus upon personal experiences and emotions.
(Econ, 12/3/11, TQ p.6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archilochus)
278BC Qu Yuan (b.~340BC), Chinese poet and scholar, died. His poems included “The Lament," written following the capture of Yingdu, capital of Chu, by General Bai Qi of the state of Qin.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qu_Yuan)
100BC The Greek poet Meleager gathered a collection of poems in his “anthologia" (The Greek Anthology).
(WSJ, 11/15/08, p.W10)
55BC Lucretius (b.~99BC), a Roman poet and philosopher, died about this time. He had authored “On the Nature of Things" (De Rerum Natura), which laid out in 7,400 lines of Latin verse the radical philosophy of the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341BC-270BC). The work disappeared in the Middle Ages and lay largely forgotten until 1417, when bibliophile Poggio Bracciolini stumbled on the work in a monastery in southern Germany.
(SSFC, 12/18/11, p.F7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucretius)
54BC Gaius Valerius Catullus (b.~84BC), Roman poet, died about this time. He became famous for his epicurean lifestyle and erotic poems.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catullus)(Econ, 2/23/08, p.103)
37BC Virgil (b.70BC), Roman poet, authored the 4th of his Eclogues. This included text regarding the newborn son of Consul Polio in which Virgil said the child would initiate a golden age in which lion and lamb would lie together amid peace and plenty. Early Christians took this as a prediction of Christ.
(WSJ, 12/29/07, p.W12)
699 Li Po (d.762), classical Chinese poet, was born. His poems included "Drinking Alone With the Moon."
(SFC, 10/30/03, p.A26)
814 Abu-Nuwas al-Hasan ben Hani al-Hakami (b.756), one of the greatest of classical Arabic poets, died. He also composed in Persian on occasion. Born in the city of Ahvaz in Persia, of an Arab father and a Persian mother, he became a master of all the contemporary genres of Arabic poetry. Abu Nuwas has entered the folkloric tradition, and he appears several times in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. His witty and humorous poetry, which dealt not with the traditional desert themes, but with urban life and the joys of wine and drinking (khamriyyat - khamriyaat), and ribald humor (mujuniyyat).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Nuwas)(Econ, 12/20/03, p.68)(Econ, 8/18/12, p.55)
1010 Abolqasem Firdawsi (Ferdowsi), a Persian poet, completed the “Shahnameh," or “Book of Kings." It is an epic of more than 50,000 rhyming couplets weaving the history of ancient shahs with myth and legend. One might call it the Iliad of Persia. Over the centuries shahs have had the poem copied and illustrated by the best artists of the day. In 2006 Dick Harris made an abridged translation to English in prose.
(WSJ, p. A-18, 10/13/94)(WSJ, 3/7/06, p.D8)
1058 Al-Ma’arri (b.973), a blind Syrian philosopher, poet and writer, died. He attacked the dogmas of religion and rejected the claim that Islam or any other religion possessed the truths they claimed.
(Econ, 7/13/13, SR p.13)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ma%CA%BFarri)
1207 Sep 30, Jalal ud-din Rumi (Jelaluddin Rumi, d.1273), Persian poet and mystic was born in the area of Balkh, Afghanistan. He later fled the Mongol invasions with his family to Konya (Iconium), Anatolia. His work “Mathwani" (Spiritual Couplets) filled 6 volumes and had a great impact on Islamic civilization. He founded the Mevlevi order of Sufis, later known as the “whirling dervishes." In 1998 a film was made about the Sufi poet’s influence on the 20th century. In 1998 Kabir Helminski edited “The Rumi Collection" with translation by Robert Bly and others. His work also included the “Shams I-Tabriz" in which he dismissed the terminology of Jew, Christian and Muslim as “false distinctions." The poet Rumi was also known as Mowlana.
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.B5)(SFEC, 9/20/98, DB p.50)(SFEC, 10/25/98, BR p.6)(WSJ, 9/7/01, p.A14)(SSFC, 10/28/01, p.B7)(SSFC, 4/1/07, p.E3)
1265 May 9, Dante Alighieri, Italian poet (Divine Comedy), was born.
(WUD, 1994 p.367)(MC, 5/9/02)
1304 Jul 20, Francisco Petrarch (d.1374), Italian poet and scholar, founder of Renaissance Humanism, was born in Arezzo. He was educated at Avignon and saw himself as a Florentine, Italian, and man of the world. He was a poet and autodidact who never stopped studying until his death.
(V.D.-H.K.p.131)(HN, 7/20/98)
1321 Sep 13, Dante Alighieri, author (Divine Comedy), died. [See Sep 14]
(MC, 9/13/01)
1321 Sep 14, Dante Alighieri author of the "Divine Comedy," died of malaria just hours after finishing writing "Paradiso." The poem was completed in Italian rather than Latin just before his death and helped make Italian the dominant linguistic force in European literature for the next several centuries. [see Sep 13]
(HFA, '96, p.38)(WSJ, 3/26/99, p.W2)(HN, 9/14/00)
1343 Geoffrey Chaucer (d.1400), English author, poet and diplomat, was born about this time.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Chaucer)(WSJ, 9/18/00, p.A36)
1374 Jul 18, Francesco Petrarch (69), Italian poet (Italia Mia), died.
(SSFC, 7/25/04, p.E3)
1389-1390 Hafez (Khwaja Shams ud-Din Hafiz) (b.1325/26), Persian poet, died about this time.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafez)(www.thesongsofhafiz.com/)(SSFC, 10/23/05, p.E3)
1400 Oct 25, Geoffrey Chaucer (b.~1343), author (Canterbury Tales), died in London. In 1965 Charles Muscatine (1920-2010) authored “Chaucer and the French Tradition: A Study in Style and Meaning."
(AP, 10/25/97)(WSJ, 9/18/00, p.A36)(SFC, 3/16/10, p.C5)
1479 Jorge Manrique (b.1440), Spanish military hero and poet, died.
(SSFC, 9/3/06, p.M3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Manrique)
1529 Jun 21, John Skelton (69), English poet, died.
(MC, 6/21/02)
1533 Jul 6, Ludovico Ariosto (57), Italian poet (Orlando Furioso), died.
(MC, 7/6/02)
1534 Gratien du Pont, a French poet, published a chessboard with 64 rhyming insults to females, one for each square.
(Econ, 7/10/04, p.76)
1536 May, English poet Thomas Wyatt was imprisoned in the Tower of London for allegedly committing adultery with Anne Boleyn.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Wyatt_(poet))
1541 Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542), British poet, authored his “Defence," an attempt to get out of the Tower of London where he faced charges of treason.
(Econ, 5/7/11, p.91)
1542 Sep 24, Thomas Wyatt (b.1503), British poet, died. He is credited with introducing the sonnet into English. In 2011 Nicola Shulman authored “Graven With Diamonds: The Many Lives of Thomas Wyatt, Courtier, Poet, Assassin."
(Econ, 5/7/11, p.91)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Wyatt_%28poet%29)
1550 Apr 12, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, was born (d.1604). Some claimed that he was responsible for all the 37 plays, 154 sonnets and 2 long narrative poems that are attributed to William Shakespeare. De Vere was first advanced as the author of Shakespeare’s work in 1918 by English schoolmaster J. Thomas Looney.
(SFC, 4/26/97, p.E1)(WSJ, 5/1/97, p.A16)(WSJ, 4/18/09, p.A2)
1557 Richard Tottel edited “Songes and Sonnettes," later referred to as “Tottle’s Miscellany." This came to be regarded as the first important anthology of English verse.
(WSJ, 11/15/08, p.W10)
1568 Sep 5, Tommasso Campanella, Italian philosopher and poet, who wrote “City of the Sun," was born.
(HN, 9/5/98)
1580 Jun 10, Luis Camoes (b.1524), Portuguese poet, died. He fought in colonial battles in Morocco and India and lost one eye. He was arrested in a street brawl in Lisbon and left for India. He traveled to Macao and Mozambique after which he published "Os Lusiadas" (The Lusiads, 1572), a poem that glorified Vasco da Gama and the history of Portugal.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lu%C3%ADs_de_Cam%C3%B5es)(SFC, 6/4/99, p.D6)(SSFC, 3/10/02, p.M3)
1591 Aug 24, Robert Herrick, English poet (Gather ye rosebuds) was baptized.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1591 Dec 14, San Juan de la Cruz (b.1542), Spanish poet, died. He is remembered for his treatise “Dark Night of the Soul."
(SSFC, 9/3/06, p.M3)(www.newadvent.org/cathen/08480a.htm)
1593 Aug 23, Fulvio Testi, Italian poet (Pianto d'Italia), was born.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1608 Dec 9, English blind poet and polemical pamphleteer John Milton (1608-1674) was born in London. His work included "Paradise Lost," Paradise Regained," and "Samson Agonistes."
(WUD, '94, p.911)(WSJ, 5/6/97, p.A20)(AP, 12/9/97)
1613 Sep 15, Thomas Overbury (b.1581), Elizabethan poet, died in London. He was murdered by his wife, Florence Maybrick, who used an enema of arsenic. The murder was arranged by Frances Howard, Lady Essex, who felt attacked by Overbury’s poem “A Wife."
(WSJ, 6/24/05, p.W9)(http://search.eb.com/shakespeare/micro/445/8.html)
1616 Apr 23, Miguel de Cervantes (b.1547), Spanish poet and novelist, died in Madrid.
(AP, 4/23/97)
1616 Apr 23, William Shakespeare (b.1564), poet and playwright, died in Stratford-on-Avon, England. In 2004 Stephen Greenblatt authored “Will In the World." In 2006 Colin McGinn authored “Discovering the Meaning Behind the Plays."
(AP, 4/23/97)(WSJ, 9/24/04, p.W7)(SSFC, 12/24/06, p.M1)
1621 Jul 8, Jean La Fontaine, poet and author of Fables, was born.
(HN, 7/8/98)
1627 Luis de Gongora y Argote (b.1561), Spanish poet, died.
(SSFC, 9/3/06, p.M3)(www.spanish-books.net/literature/i_gongora.htm)
1631 Mar 31, John Donne (b.1572), British metaphysical poet, died in London. In 2006 John Stubbs authored “Donne: The Reformed Soul."
(www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/donnebio.htm)(Econ, 9/9/06, p.79)
1631 Aug 9, John Dryden, the 1st official poet laureate of England (1668-1700), was born at Aldwinkle, Northamptonshire.
(HN, 8/9/02)
1633 Mar 1, George Herbert (b.1593), Welsh-born priest and poet, died. In 2013 John Drury authored “Music at Midnight: The Life and Poetry of George Herbert."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Herbert)(Econ, 8/31/13, p.72)
1635 Aug 27, Lope Felix de Vega (72), playwright, poet (Angelica, Arcadia), died.
(MC, 8/27/02)
1637 Aug 6, Ben Johnson (65), English dramatist and poet, died. In 1960 Jonas Barish wrote "Ben Jonson and the Language of Prose Comedy."
(AP, 1/4/98)(WUD, 1994, p.771)(SFC, 4/4/98, p.A24)(MC, 8/6/02)
1644 Poet John Milton published "Areopagitica," an essay in defense of a free press.
(SFC, 1/21/04, p.D2)
1644-1694 Matsuo Basho, Japanese poet. His work include "The Narrow Road to the Deep North" (Oku no Hosomichi). One of his poems celebrated the entrancing cry of the cicada.
(SFC, 11/28/96, p.C16)(WUD, 1994, p.124)(SFC, 7/29/97, p.C3)(Econ, 7/5/14, p.67)
1646 Aug 28, Fulvio Testi (53), Italian poet (Poesie liriche), died.
(MC, 8/28/01)
1647 Apr 1, John Wilmot (d.1680) Second Earl of Rochester, poet (A Satyr Upon Mankinde), scandalous pornographer and bawdy playwright, was born. He married Elizabeth Malet, and carried on an affair with the actress Elizabeth Barry. His friend, playwright George Etherege modeled the character Dorimont after him in "Man of Mode." A 1994 play by Stephen Jeffrey titled "The Libertine," is based on Wilmot’s life.
(WSJ, 3/28/96,p.A-12)(WSJ, 1/14/98, p.A17)
1648 Apr 16, John Luyken, poet, etcher (Duytse Lyre), was born.
(MC, 4/16/02)
1664 Jul 21, Matthew Prior, English poet, was born.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1667 Aug 20, John Milton published Paradise Lost, an epic poem about the fall of Adam and Eve.
(HN, 8/20/98)
1678 Aug 16, Andrew Marvell (b.1621), English poet (Definition of Love), died.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1680 Jul 26, John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, poet, courtier, died.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1683 Jul 3, Edward Young, English poet, dramatist and literary critic, was born. His work included "Night Thoughts."
(HN, 7/3/99)
1687 Apr 16, George Villiers (b.1628), the 2nd Duke of Buckingham, died. The English statesman was a poet, an amateur chemist and one of England’s richest men.
(Econ, 4/3/10, p.88)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Villiers,_2nd_Duke_of_Buckingham)
1695 Apr 13, Jean de la Fontaine (73), French poet (Fables), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_de_La_Fontaine)
1695 Apr 17, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (b.~1648), Mexican nun and poet, died of plague.
(SSFC, 9/3/06, p.M3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sor_Juana)
1700 May 1, John Dryden (b.1631), English poet, playwright (Rival Ladies), died. He had written that repentance was virtue of weak minds and the want of power to sin.
(MC, 5/1/02)(Econ, 7/24/04, p.70)
1712 The poem “The Rape of the Lock" by English poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744) was anonymously published in Lintot’s Miscellany. It was revised, expanded and reissued under Pope’s name in 1714.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_the_Lock)
1719 Jun 17, Joseph Addison (47), English poet, writer, secretary of state, died.
(MC, 6/17/02)
1730 Makhtum Kuli, one of Turkmenistan’s greatest poets, was born. He died in the 1880s.
(www.advantour.com/turkmenistan/culture.htm)
1750 Jul 28, Philippe Fabre d'Eglantine, poet, satirist, politician, was born in France.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1759 Jan 25, Robert Burns (d.1796), poet and song writer, who wrote "Auld Lang Syne" and "Comin’ Thru the Rye," was born in Alloway, Scotland. He took traditional Scottish songs and fiddle tunes, and improved upon existing words, or added verses where they had been lost. "Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind, should auld acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne. For old lang syne, my dear, for old lang syne, we'll take a cup of kindness yet, for old lang syne."
(EMN, 1/96, p.4,6)(HN, 1/25/99)(SFC, 12/30/99, p.A13)(MC, 1/25/02)
1759 Aug 24, Ewald C. von Kleist (44), German poet, died.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1761 James Macpherson (1736-1796), Scottish poet, announced the discovery of an epic on the subject of Fingal (related to the Irish mythological character Fionn mac Cumhaill/Finn McCool) written by Ossian (based on Fionn's son Oisín). He then published poems by Ossian, the blind 3rd century poet, which became very popular and later exposed as a fraud.
(WSJ, 7/26/08, p.W8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Macpherson)
1763 Sep 26, English poet John Byrom (b.1692) died. The words "Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee" made their first appearance in print in "one of the most celebrated and most frequently quoted epigrams," satirizing the disagreements between George Frideric Handel and Giovanni Battista Bononcini, written by John Byrom. A nursery rhyme published in 1805 included the characters Tweedledum and Tweedledee as did Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There" (1871).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweedledum_and_Tweedledee)
1767 Phillis Wheatley's (d.1784) poetry was published for the first time. She traveled to England in 1773, where her book "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral" was hailed as the first published by an African American. In 1776 the African slave-born poet met with George Washington in Cambridge, just before the British evacuated Boston.
(HNPD, 2/20/99)(SSFC, 7/25/04, p.F3)
1770 Aug 24, Thomas Chatterton (b.1752), English poet (Revenge), committed suicide.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1771 Jul 30, Thomas Gray (54), English poet, died. His work included "Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard" (1751).
(MC, 7/30/02)
1772 Oct 21, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (d.1834), English poet and author, was born. His work included "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1797) and "Kubla Khan."
(AP, 9/12/97)(HN, 10/21/00)
1773 Thomas Day, English abolitionist, wrote a poem with his friend John Bicknell called “The Dying Negro."
(Econ, 2/16/13, p.83)
1774 Aug 12, Robert Southey, English poet laureate (1813-1843) and biographer of Nelson, was born.
(HN, 8/12/98)(SC, 8/12/02)
1781 Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), English lexicographer, essayist and poet, authored “Lives of the Poets."
(ON, 11/06, p.9)
1782 Aug 18, Poet and artist William Blake married Catherine Sophia Boucher.
(HN, 8/18/00)
1784 Dec 13, Samuel Johnson (b.1709), English lexicographer, essayist, poet and moralist best known for "The Dictionary of the English Language," died. "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." -- (To which Ambrose Bierce replied, "I beg to submit that it is the first.") Johnson, an antagonist of slavery, left behind an annuity and much of his personal property to his black valet, Francis Barber (b.1735-1801). In 1791 Boswell wrote the celebrated "The Life of Samuel Johnson." In 1955 Walter Jackson Bate (d.1999 at 81) published "The Achievement of Samuel Johnson" and in 1977 the biography "Samuel Johnson." In 2000 Adam Potkay authored "The Passion for Happiness," in which he argued that Samuel Johnson should be included in the Anglo-Scottish Enlightenment along with David Hume, Adam Smith and Edward Gibbon. In 2000 Peter Martin authored "A Life of James Boswell."
(AP, 10/8/97)(WSJ, 6/7/00, p.A24)(WSJ, 11/29/00, p.A24)(ON, 11/06, p.10)(SSFC, 10/28/07, p.M3)
1786 Robert Burns published his first book of poetry in Kilmarnock.
(SFC, 9/30/98, Z1 p.3)
1792 Aug 4, Percy Bysshe Shelley (d.1822), English poet and author who wrote "Prometheus Unbound," was born in Field Place, England. He married Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, author of "Frankenstein." He wrote the poem "Adonais."
(WUD, 1994, p.1314)(HN, 8/4/98)
1793 Jul 13, John Clare, English poet, was born. He was discovered in 1819 and spent his last 30 years in an asylum. In 2003 Jonathan Bate authored "John Clare: A Biography."
(HN, 7/13/01)(Econ, 10/11/03, p.85)
1793 Augustin Ximenez (1726-1817), Marquis of Ximenez, a Frenchman of Spanish origin, wrote a poem with the line “Attaquons dans ses eaux la perfide Albion," which means "Let us attack perfidious Albion in her waters." The poet of perfidy later lectured French soldiers that “Il est beau de perir," which means “it is beautiful to perish."
(SSFC, 1/14/07, p.M4)(http://tinyurl.com/ye6bd7)
1796 Feb 17, James Macpherson (b.1736), Scottish poet, died. In 1761 he had announced the discovery of an epic on the subject of Fingal written by Ossian (based on Fionn's son Oisín). He then published poems by Ossian, the alleged blind 3rd century poet, which became very popular and later exposed as a fraud.
(WSJ, 7/26/08, p.W8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Macpherson)
1796 Jul 21, Robert Burns (37), Scottish poet (Auld Lang Syne), died.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1797 Samuel Taylor Coleridge authored his "Rime of the Ancient Mariner."
(CW, Winter 04, p.17)
1798 Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth published "Lyrical Ballads."
(WSJ, 4/15/99, p.A20)
1799 May 26, Alexander Pushkin, Russian poet (d.1837), was born (OC). His bicentennial in Russia was celebrated Jun 6,1999. [see Jun 6]
(HFA, '96, p.30)(AHD, p.1062)(SFC, 6/3/99, p.C2)
1799 Jun 6, Alexander Pushkin (d.1837), Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature, was born (NC). He was the descendant of an Abyssinian slave of royal blood who was given to Peter the Great as a gift. His works included "Boris Godunov," "Eugene Onegin," and "The Queen of Spades." [see May 26]
(HFA, '96, p.30)(AHD, p.1062)(SFC, 6/3/99, p.C2)(HN, 6/6/99)(WSJ, 7/15/99, p.A16)
1800-1820 The classic love poem "The Tale of Kieu" was written in Vietnam.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.E7)(www.deanza.edu/faculty/swensson/kieu.html)
1801 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet, wrote to Sir Humphrey Davy a letter in which he says: "I seem to sink in upon myself in a ruin, like a Column of Sand, informed and animated only by a Whirl-Blast of the Dessert." Coleridge had become addicted to opium in this year.
(OAPOC-TH, p.71)(WSJ, 4/15/99, p.A20)
1802 Aug 13, Nikolaus Lenau, German poet (Faust, Die Albigenser), was born in Hungary.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1804 Samuel Taylor Coleridge (32), poet, fled to Malta and worked as an assistant to the civilian governor. He returned to England in 1806.
(WSJ, 4/15/99, p.A20)
1805 Walter Scott (1771-1832) of Edinburgh, Scotland, published his first long poem: “The Lay of the Last Minstrel."
(Econ, 7/31/10, p.67)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Scott)
1809 Aug 6, Alfred Lord Tennyson (d.1892), English poet laureate (1850), was born. His work included: "The Charge of the Light Brigade." "Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers."
(HN, 8/6/98)(AP, 10/6/00)
1809 Lord Byron (1788-1824) traveled to Spain, Albania and Greece with John Cam Hobhouse and soon met with Ali Pasha.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Byron)
1809 English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge published his essay “On the Vulgar Errors Respecting Taxes and Taxation."
(Econ, 5/19/12, p.21)
1813-1843 Robert Southey was the poet laureate of England over this period. He was the author of "The Three Bears."
(SFEC, 2/15/98, Z1 p.8)
1817 Aug 24, Aleksei K. Tolstoy, [Kozjma Prutkov], Russian poet, writer, was born.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1817 Percy Bysshe Shelley (25), English romantic poet, authored his sonnet “Ozymandias." It was first published in 1818.
(Econ, 12/21/13, p.125)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozymandias)
1822 Jul 8, Percy Bysshe Shelley (b.1792), English poet, drowned while sailing in Italy at age 29.
(HN, 7/8/01)
1823 Dec 23, The poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" by Clement C. Moore, often called "Twas the night before Christmas," was published in the Troy, N.Y., Sentinel. Recent scholarship reveals the original to have been written by Major Henry Livingston (1748-1828).
(AP, 12/23/97)(AH, 4/01, p.12)(AH, 2/05, p.18)
1823 Lord Byron returned to Greece to provide moral support to insurgents and draw attention to Ottoman massacres of Greek civilians.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Byron)(SFC, 9/7/08, Books p.5)
1824 Apr 19, George Gordon, (6th Baron Byron, b.1788) aka Lord Byron, English poet, died of malaria in Greece at Missolonghi on the gulf of Patras preparing to fight for Greek independence. In 1999 Benita Eisler published the biography "Byron: Child of Passion, Fool of Fame." In 2002 Fiona MacCarthy authored "Byron : Life and Legend." In 2009 Edna O’Brien authored “Byron in Love."
(SFC, 6/9/97, p.D3)(WSJ, 4/26/99, p.A16)(HN, 4/1901)(SSFC, 12/29/02, p.M2)(SSFC, 6/21/09, Books p.J5)
1827 Aug 12, William Blake (b.1757), English visionary engraver and poet, died. In 2001 G.E. Bentley Jr. authored "The Stranger From Paradise: A Biography of William Blake."
(SSFC, 5/27/01, DB p.73)(MC, 8/12/02)
1828 May 12, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (d.1882), English poet and painter, was born. He helped found the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_Gabriel_Rossetti)(WSJ, 7/25/95, p.A-10)
1832 Feb 22, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (b.1749), poet, (Faust, Egmont) died in Weimar, Germany. Goethe had served as minister of mines under Bismarck. He completed "Faust" just before his death: "When Ideas fail, words come in handy." In 1988 Kenneth Weisinger authored "The Classical Facade: A Non-Classical Reading of Goethe's Criticism." In 2006 John Armstrong authored “Love, Life, Goethe: How to Be Happy in an Imperfect World."
(SFEC, 4/26/98, Z1 p.8)(SFC, 8/7/03, p.A19)(SFC, 12/14/04, p.B1)(WSJ, 1/13/07, p.P10)
1832 Sep 21, Sir Walter Scott (b.1771), Scottish poet and novelist, died at Abbotsford near Melrose in the Scottish Borders. His novels included "Ivanhoe" and "Rob Roy." Scott was later credited with inventing the genre of historical fiction. In 2010 Stuart Kelley authored “Scott-land: The Man Who Invented a Nation."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Scott)(SSFC, 3/11/07, p.G3)(Econ, 7/31/10, p.67)
1833 Alexander Pushkin, Russian poet, wrote his poem "The Bronze Horseman" (Myedny Vsadnik).
(SFEC, 6/27/99, p.T11)(WSJ, 8/5/06, p.P12)
1834 Jul 25, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (b.1772), English poet, died. He and his friend William Wordsworth were among the founders of the Romantic Movement in England and later identified, along with Robert Southey, as the Lake School of poets. Coleridge’s work included "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," "Frost at Midnight" and "Kubla Khan." In his later life he authored the "Bibliographia Literaria," a work of literary theory. In 1999 Richard Holmes published "Coleridge: Darker Reflections, 1804-1834," which focused on the poet's later life. His volume "Coleridge: Early Visions" was published in 1989. In 2007 Adam Sisman authored “The Friendship: Wordsworth & Coleridge."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Coleridge-Taylor)(WSJ, 4/15/99, p.A20)(WSJ, 2/20/07, p.D8)
1836 Seitnazar Seyidi (b.1775) and Kurbandurdy Zelili (b.1780), Turkmenistan poets, died. Both are considered to be successors of Makhtum Kuli.
(www.advantour.com/turkmenistan/culture.htm)
1837 Tennyson (1809-1892) wrote his poem “Locksley Hall." It included a vision of a tranquil world “lapt in universal law." It was published as part of a collection in 1842. The poem embodied the pain of lost love and looked forward to a time when the nations of the world would abandon war and form a “parliament of man."
(WSJ, 6/28/06, p.D10)(www.firstscience.com/site/POEMS/tennyson4.asp)
1837 The Mahavamsa ("Great Chronicle"), a historical poem written in the Pali language of the kings of Sri Lanka, was published by George Turnour, an historian and officer of the Ceylon Civil Service. It covers the period from the coming of King Vijaya of Kalinga (ancient Orissa) in 543 BCE to the reign of King Mahasena (334–361).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahavamsa)
1841 Jul 27, Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov (b.1814), poet, novelist, died.
(MC, 7/27/02)
1843 Mar 21, Robert W. Southey (b.1774), British poet laureate and historian, died. In 2006 W. A. Speck authored the biography “Robert Southey."
(WSJ, 8/12/06, p.P8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Southey)
1844 Jul 28, Gerard Manley Hopkins, English poet and Jesuit priest, was born.
(HN, 7/28/01)
1848 The painter-poet Josef Victor von Scheffel published cynical poems with titles as 'Biedermann's Evening socializing' and 'Bummelmaier's Complaint' in the Viennese satirical magazine 'Fliegende Blätter' (Flying Leaves). These names were combined into the pseudonym 'Gottlieb Biedermaier' by Ludwig Eichrodt, who together with Adolf Kussmaul published poems by the schoolmaster Samuel Friedrich Sauter under this name. The spelling finally changed into 'Biedermeier' in 1869 when Eichrodt published 'Biedermeier's Liederlust'.
(www.rupertcavendish.co.uk/Biedermeier/WhatisBiedermeier/whatisbiedermeier.htm)
1849 Jul 22, Emma Lazarus, American poet, was born of Sephardic Jewish parents in NYC. Her poem, "The New Colossus," is inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty.
(HN, 7/22/98)(SFEC, 4/30/00, BR p.2)
1850 Apr 23, William Wordsworth (b.1770), English poet, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wordsworth)
1850 Aug 22, Nikolaus Lenau (48) (pseudonym of Nikolaus Franz Niembsch), Hungarian-born poet and writer, died in Austria.
(MC, 8/22/02)(Internet)
1850 Sep 2, Eugene Field, author, poet and journalist, was born. His work included “Little Boy Blue."
(HN, 9/2/00)(MC, 9/2/01)
1855 Jul 4, One of America's greatest poets -- Walt Whitman -- published the first edition of his famous "Leaves of Grass", a collection of 12 poems. Whitman published the edition himself and had about 1,000 copies printed. He later recalled about the publication, "I don't think one copy was sold, not a copy." The book was published in Philadelphia after the Boston district attorney cited 22 passages as violating a state law against obscenity.
(IB, 12/7/98)(SFC, 3/3/99, Z1 p.9)
1856 Feb 17, Heinrich Heine (b.1797), German journalist and poet, died in Paris. His prose work included a series of travel memoirs that began in 1826 with “The Harz Journey."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Heine)
1858 Longfellow wrote his poem: The Courtship of Miles Standish."
(WSJ, 11/24/04, p.A1)
1859 Aug 28, Leigh Hunt (b.1784), English poet and essayist, died. In 2005 Nicholas Roe authored “Fiery Heart: The first Life of Leigh Hunt." Anthony Holden authored “The Wit in the Dungeon: The Life of Leigh Hunt."
(RTH, 8/28/99)(Econ, 1/29/05, p.80)
1860 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), published his poem “Paul Revere’s Ride," (The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Wadsworth_Longfellow)(WSJ, 10/31/00, p.A24)
1861 Mar 10, Taras Shevchenko (b.1814), Ukraine poet and artist died. He was a member of the Sts Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood and an academician of the Imperial Academy of Arts.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taras_Shevchenko)(AP, 3/9/14)
1861 Sir Francis Turner Palgrave (1824-1897) edited “The Golden Treasury," a 4-volume anthology of the best songs and lyrical poems in the English language.
(WSJ, 1/20/07, p.P11)(WSJ, 11/15/08, p.W10)
1863 Aug 14, Ernest L. Thayer, author of the poem "Casey at the Bat," was born.
(HN, 8/14/98)
1865 Jun 13, William Butler Yeats (d.1939), Irish poet and playwright, was born to an Anglo-Irish family in a Dublin suburb. He is best remembered for his poems "Byzantium" and "Easter 1916." He won the Nobel Prize in 1923. The first volume of his autobiography was "Reveries Over Childhood and Youth" (1915). Richard Ellman published a biography in 1948. The book "W.B. Yeats: A Life, Vol. 1: The Apprentice Mage 1865-1914," by R.F. Foster covered this period of Yeats’ life. "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" is his best known poem. "Too long a sacrifice / Can make a stone of the heart. / O when may it suffice?"
(V.D.-H.K.p.365)(WSJ, 4/2397, p.A1)(AP, 4/29/98)(HN, 6/13/98)(SFEC, 8/8/99, p.T6)(MC, 6/13/02)
1865 Bret Harte edited the 1st collection of California poetry from newspaper clippings of poems compiled by Mary Tingley of San Francisco.
(SSFC, 1/4/04, p.M1)
1865-1914 The book "W.B. Yeats: A Life, Vol. 1: The Apprentice Mage," by R.F. Foster covered this period of Yeats’ life. "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" is his best known poem.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, BR p.6)
1865-1939 William Butler Yeats, Irish poet and playwright. The first volume of his autobiography was "Reveries Over Childhood and Youth" (1915). Richard Ellman published a biography in 1948. "Too long a sacrifice / Can make a stone of the heart. / O when may it suffice?"
(V.D.-H.K.p.365)(WSJ, 4/2397, p.A1)(AP, 4/29/98)
1867 Aug 31, [Pierre-]Charles Baudelaire (46), French poet (Journaux Intimes), died.
(MC, 8/31/01)
1887 Sep 7, Dame Edith Sitwell (d.1964), English poet, was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Sitwell)
1868 Aug 23, Edgar Lee Masters (d.1950), poet, novelist, was born in Garnett, Kansas.
(http://www.nybooks.com/articles/3088)
1869 Jul 8, William Vaughan Moody, poet and playwright (The Great Divide), was born.
(HN, 7/8/01)
1871 Jul 3, William Henry Davies, Welsh poet, was born.
(HN, 7/3/01)
1873 Jan 7, Charles Peguy (d.1914), French poet and writer, was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_P%C3%A9guy)
1873 Jul 10, French poet Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) wounded Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) with a pistol.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Rimbaud)
1876 Jun 10, Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) embarked for the Dutch East Indies, or modern-day Indonesia. He arrived on July 22 and on August 15 he deserted, leaving his possessions to be sold for the benefit of the local orphanage. He reappeared only on December 31, 1876, when he returned to his mother in Charleville-Mezieres in northern France. Rimbaud, who wrote the anti-militarist "The Sleeper in the Valley," had embarked on the journey after signing up for six years in the Dutch colonial army. In 2011 American writer Jamie James authored "Rimbaud in Java: The Lost Voyage."
(AP, 1/28/12)
1878 Jan 8, [NS date] Russian poet Nikolay Nekrasov (b.1821) died. He is credited with introducing into Russian poetry ternary meters and the technique of dramatic monologue.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolay_Nekrasov)
1882 Mar 24, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (b.1807), US poet (Song of Hiawatha), died. He is the sole American honored with a bust in the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey. In 2000 J.D. McClatchy edited "Longfellow: Poems and Other Writings."
(WSJ, 10/31/00, p.A24)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Wadsworth_Longfellow)
1886 May 15, Poet Emily Dickinson (b.1830) died in Amherst, Mass., where she had lived in seclusion for the previous 24 years. In 2001 Alfred Habegger authored her biography: "My Wars Are laid Away in Books." In 2008 Brenda Wineapple authored “White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson & Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911). In 2010 Lyndall Gordon authored “Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and her Family Feuds," in which he presents evidence that Dickinson suffered from congenital epilepsy.
(AP, 5/15/97)(HN, 5/15/01)(WSJ, 11/2/01, p.W11)(Econ, 7/26/08, p.96)
1886 “Illuminations," the final work of Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891), was published in France. By this time he had given up on poetry to become a trader in Africa.
(Econ, 6/25/11, p.98)
1887 Aug 3, Rupert Brooke (d.1915), English poet who mainly wrote about World War I, was born: "Cities, like cats, will reveal themselves at night."
(AP, 2/20/98)(HN, 8/3/98)
1878 Jun 12, William Cullen Bryant (b.1794), American poet and journalist, died. He wrote the bulk of his poem “Thanatopsis" while still a teenager in Massachusetts. In 2008 Gilbert H. Muller authored “William Cullen Bryant: Author of America."
(WSJ, 6/20/08, p.W3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cullen_Bryant)
1887 Mar 31, John Godfrey Saxe (b.1816), American poet, died. In 1969 he was quoted saying: “Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made." His poems included “The Blind Men and the Elephant" (1862).
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Godfrey_Saxe)
1889 Jun 8, Gerard Manley Hopkins (54), poet, died.
(MC, 6/8/02)
1889 Jun 15, Mihai Eminescu, born in 1850 as Mihail Eminovici, died in Bucharest. He was a Romantic poet, novelist and journalist, and often regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihai_Eminescu)
1889 Dec, The poem Clancy of the Overflow by Banjo Paterson 1st appeared in the Christmas edition of Australia’s Bulletin magazine.
(NG, 8/04, p.10)
1891 Nov 10, J.N. Arthur Rimbaud (b.1854), French poet and arms merchant (Saison en Enfer), died in Marseille after doctors amputated his leg. In 1961 Enid Starkie authored a biography. In 2000 Graham Robb authored "Rimbaud." Rimbaud stopped writing poetry at age 21 and ended his last years in Africa as an arms dealer. In 2008 Edmund White authored “Rimbaud: The Double Life of a Rebel."
(WUD, 1994 p.1234)(HN, 10/20/00)(SFC, 2/12/02, p.D3)(Econ, 10/11/08, p.115)
1893 Aug 22, Dorothy Parker (d.1967), poet, satirist, screenwriter and founding member of the Algonquin Round Table, was born in West Bend, N.J. "Authors and actors and artists and such / Never know nothing, and never know much."
(AP, 8/22/97)(HN, 8/22/02)
1893 Jul 19, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Russian poet, was born.
(HN, 7/19/01)
1894 Jul 18, Charles Marie Leconte de Lisle (born 1818), French poet, died.
(MC, 7/18/02)(WUD, 1994, p.817)
1894 French poet Pierre Louys (1870-1925) authored “The Songs of Bilitis" (1894) a book of lesbian love poetry.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Songs_of_Bilitis)
1895 Jul 24, Robert Graves (d.1985), British poet and novelist (Goodbye to All That, I Claudius), was born. "There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money either."
(AP, 4/8/99)(HN, 7/24/02)(Econ, 8/17/13, p.71)
1895 Banjo Paterson wrote his poem Waltzing Matilda while on holiday in Queensland. The name referred to a slang term for drifting around the outback with a bedroll (your matilda) slung over the shoulder. Christina Macpherson adopted the poem to the Scottish tune “Thou Bonnie Wood o’ Craigielea."
(NG, 8/04, p.24)
1896 Irish poet W.B. Yeats met Irish playwright John Millington Synge in Paris and suggested Synge go and live on the Aran Islands. Synge took his advice and spent years there developing a whole new language for his plays. Synge also spent time on Great Blasket. In 2012 Robert Kanigel authored “On an Irish Island."
(SSFC, 3/11/12, p.F5)
1898 Jul 22, Stephen Vincent Benet, poet and short-story writer, author of John Brown's Body, was born.
(HN, 7/22/98)
1898 Aug 24, Malcolm Cowley, poet and translator, literary critic and social historian was born. He wrote "The Dream of the Golden Mountains."
(HN, 8/24/98)
1899 Jul 21, Poet Hart Crane was born in Garrettsville, Ohio.
(AP, 7/21/99)
1899 Aug 24, Jorge Luis Borges (d.1986), Argentine poet and philosophical essayist, was born in Buenos Aires.
(WUD, 1994, p.171)(WSJ, 9/21/98, p.A26)(AP, 8/24/99)
1899 Rudyard Kipling authored his poem “The White Man’s Burden."
(SSFC, 5/8/05, p.B1)
1902 Feb 1, Langston Hughes, African-American poet, was born in Joplin, Mo. His books included “Way Down South."
(HN, 2/1/99)(SSFC, 7/25/04, p.F3)
1902 Sep 29, William McGonagall (b~1825), poet, died in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was mocked by literary critics and had food thrown at him during public readings. He died penniless and was buried in an unmarked grave. Critics later awarded him the "world's worst" label because of the crashing lack of subtlety in terms of rhyme, imagery, vocabulary or repetition. His most famous poem is about the Tay Bridge disaster of 1879, in which 75 people died. In 2008 35 broadsheets of his original poems were auctioned for $13,200.
(AFP, 5/16/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McGonagall)(WSJ, 5/17/08, p.A1)
1904 Jul 12, Pablo Neruda (d.1973), Chilean poet and political activist (Residence on Earth-Nobel 1971), was born as Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto in Parral, Chile.
(HN, 7/12/01)(SFC, 7/15/04, p.E11)
1905 Jul 29, Stanley Kunitz, poet, was born.
(HN, 7/29/01)
1906 Feb 9, Poet Paul Laurence Dunbar (33), son of former slaves, died of TB in his hometown of Dayton, Ohio.
(AH, 2/06, p.15)
1906 Aug 28, John Betjeman (d.1984), poet laureate of England (1972-1984), was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Betjeman)
1907 Sep, The Cosmopolitan magazine published the epic poem “A Wine of Wizardry" by George Sterling (1869-1926). The poem and accompanying essay by Ambrose Bierce sparked critical reaction across the continent. Sterling, Jack London’s best friend, was the scion of a Long Island whaling family and worked in an East Bay real estate firm.
(SSFC, 12/23/07, p.M4)
1908 May 25, Theodore Roethke (d.1963), American poet, was born in Saginaw, Mich.
(AP, 5/25/08)(MT, Summer 01, p.3)
1909 Feb 20, F.T. Marinetti (1876-1944), Italian poet, published the 1st Futurist Manifesto in the Paris newspaper Le Figaro. It included statements such as “We want to glorify war - the only cure for the world…" and We intend to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and fearlessness."
(www.unknown.nu/futurism/)(SFEC, 1/3/99, DB p.27)(WSJ, 10/23/08, p.A15)(Econ, 2/22/14, p.71)
1911 Jun 30, Czeslaw Milosz (d.2004), Polish poet and critic and Nobel winner, was born in Lithuania. In 2001 his Polish "Milosz’s ABC’s" was published in English.
(SFC, 3/21/01, p.C1)(HN, 6/30/01)
1912 Max Beerbohm (1872-1956), English essayist, published “A Christmas Garland," a collection of 17 poetic parodies with a Christmas theme.
(www.amazon.com/Christmas-Garland-Max-Beerbohm/dp/0300058098)
1912 Harriet Monroe, former Chicago Tribune art critic, founded the monthly Poetry Magazine. In 2002 Ruth Lilly (87), great-grandchild of Eli Lilly, gave the magazine a $100 million endowment.
(SFC, 11/19/02, p.A3)
1913 Feb 13, Joaquin Miller (b.1837), known as the "poet of the Sierras," died in Oakland, Ca. Miller had sponsored California’s 1st Arbor Day. His work included "Utopia" (1880) and “Life amongst the Modocs : unwritten history" (1873), an autobiographical novel first published in London. Miller was born as Cincinnatus Hiner Miller near Liberty, Indiana. His secret "California Diary" was unearthed 25 years after his death. In 1919 Oakland purchased his property and in 1928 turned it into a park combined with adjacent undeveloped tracts.
(http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007936641)(SFEM, 4/2/00, p.48)(SSFC, 1/14/07, p.B3)(SSFC, 6/16/13, DB p.17)
1914 Sep 5, Charles Peguy (d.1914), French poet and writer, died. "It is impossible to write ancient history because we lack source materials, and impossible to write modern history because we have far too many."
(AP, 7/28/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_P%C3%A9guy)
1915 Ina Coolbrith (1841-1928), born as Josephine Donna Smith, became California’s first poet laureate.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ina_Coolbrith)
1915 Hans Leip, in training for the Prussian Guard, authored the poem “Song of a Young Sentry." It reflected his recent meetings with two women named Lili and Marlene. In 1938 Norbert Schultze of Berlin put it to music. The composition was then recorded by cabaret chanteuse Lale Anderson and became hugely as the song “Lili Marlene." In 2008 Liel Leibovitz and Matthew Miller authored “Lili Marlene: The Soldier’s Song of World War II."
(WSJ, 11/8/08, p.W8)
1915-1939 The book "W.B. Yeats: A Life, Vol. 2: The Arch Poet," by R.F. Foster covered this period of Yeats’ life.
(WSJ, 11/13/03, p.D8)
1916 Feb 6, Ruben Dario (b.1867), Nicaraguan poet, died. Dario, one of Nicaragua's best-known poets, is considered the father of the Modernismo movement.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9028777/Ruben-Dario)
1916 Jul 4, Poet Alan Seeger died in action at Befloy-en-Santerre. He had enlisted into the French Foreign Legion at the outset of WW I. He wrote the lines: I have a rendezvous with death / At some disputed barricade..."
(SFEC, 3/16/97, Z1 p.2)
1917 Apr 9, Edward Thomas (b.1878), British writer and poet, was killed in action during the Battle of Arras. His travel books included “The Icknield Way." In 2012 Matthew Hollis authored “Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas."
(Economist, 9/22/12, p.94)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Thomas_%28poet%29)
1917 TS Eliot (1888-1965) authored his poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
(www.bartleby.com/198/1.html)
1917 Harriet Monroe and Alice Corbin Henderson edited “The New Poetry," an anthology of contemporary poets.
(WSJ, 11/15/08, p.W10)
1918 Jan 28, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae (b.1872), Canadian MD and author of the poem Flanders Field (1915), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCrae)
1918 Apr 1, Isaac Rosenberg (b.1890), British WWI war poet, died near Arras, France, during Ludendorff’s big spring offensive. In 2008 Jean Moorcroft Wilson authored “Isaac Rosenberg: The Making of a Great War Poet."
(WSJ, 4/3/09, p.W6)
1918 Jul 30, Poet Joyce Kilmer (b.1886), a sergeant in the 165th U.S. Infantry Regiment, was killed during the Second Battle of the Marne in World War I. Kilmer is perhaps best remembered for his poem "Trees."
(AP, 7/30/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyce_Kilmer)
1920 Aug 16, Charles Bukowski, poet and novelist, was born.
(HN, 8/16/00)
1921 Ezra Pound edited “The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot.
(Econ, 12/4/04, p.85)
1922 Jul 17, Donald Davie, English poet and literary critic, was born.
(HN, 7/17/01)
1922 Feb, Ernest Hemingway met poet Ezra Pound in a Paris bookstore. Pound was one of the founders of a school of poetry called Imagism.
(ON, 7/05, p.9)
1922 Henry Lawson (b.1867), Australian poet, died.
(NG, 8/04, p.1)
1924 May 12, Russian-American poet Alexander Esenin-Volpin was born in Leningrad. A notable dissident, political prisoner and a leader of the Soviet human rights movement, he spent total of fourteen years incarcerated and repressed by the Soviet authorities in prisons, psikhushkas and exile.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Esenin-Volpin)
1925 Jul 17, Laszlo Nagy, Hungarian poet, was born.
(HN, 7/17/01)
1926 Nov 17, George Sterling (d.1926), California poet and critic, committed suicide by swallowed cyanide in the locker room of the Bohemian Club on Taylor Street in SF. His wife had committed suicide by poison in 1918.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Sterling)(SFC, 11/16/01, WB p.G4)
1926 California poet Lew Welch was born.
(SFC, 12/9/03, p.D1)
1927 Jul 28, John Ashbery, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet (Self-Portrait in a Convict's Mirror), was born.
(HN, 7/28/01)
1928 Apr 4, Maya Angelou (d.2014), American poet, was born.
(HN, 4/4/98)(Econ, 6/7/14, p.98)
1928 Philip Levine, poet, was born in Detroit, Mich. He spent a good portion of his life teaching poetry in Fresno, Ca.
(SFC, 10/19/04, p.E1)
1929 Jul 15, Hugo Von Hofmannsthal, playwright, poet, died.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1930 Mar 26, Gregory Corso, beat poet (Happy Birthday of Death, Long Live Man), was born. He discovered literature in prison.
(HN, 3/26/01)(SS, 3/26/02)
1930 Aug 16, Ted Hughes, English poet laureate, was born.
(HN, 8/16/00)
1931 Nov 19, Xu Zhimo (34), Chinese poet, was killed in a plane crash while flying from Nanjing to Beijing. He left behind four collections of verse and several volumes of translations from various languages. His poem “On Leaving Cambridge" made famous a willow tree on the ground’s of King’s College.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xu_Zhimo)(Econ, 12/18/10, p.114)
1932 Apr 27, American poet Hart Crane (b.1899) drowned after jumping from a steamer while en route to New York. In 1967 R.W.B. Lewis (d. 2002) authored "The Poetry of Hart Crane."
(AP, 4/27/97)(SFC, 6/17/02, p.B5)
1933 Apr 29, Constantine Cavafy (b.1863), Greek poet, died in Alexandria, Egypt. The 1996 Greek film "Cavafy" was a profile of the Greek homosexual poet, and a winner of Greece’s National Film Award for best feature of the year. Cavafy spent 30 years working as a clerk in the Ministry of Irrigation. In 2006 “The Collected Poems of C.P. Cavafy," translated by Aliki Barstone, was published.
(SFC, 6/18/98, p.E4)(SSFC, 6/24/01, DB p.64)(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/kafavis.htm)
1933 Jul 18, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Russian poet, was born in Zima, Russia.
(HN, 7/18/01)(MC, 7/18/02)
1934 Apr 11, Mark Strand (b.1934), Canadian poet, was born. He became the fourth national poet laureate in 1990, and received dozens of angry letters when he announced that he would not write any poems for national public figures, even if the president's dog died. "Poetry is about slowing down. You sit and you read something, you read it again, and it reveals a little bit more, and things come to light you never could have predicted."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Strand)
1934 Sep 9, Sonia Sanchez, poet, was born in Birmingham, Alabama.
(HN, 9/9/00)
1935 Apr 6, Edwin Arlington Robinson (b.1869), US poet, died. In 2006 Scott Donaldson authored “Edwin Arlington Robinson: A Poet’s Life."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Arlington_Robinson)(WSJ, 1/27/07, p.P9)
1935 Sep 10, Mary Oliver, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, was born in maple Heights, Ohio.
(HN, 9/10/00)
1935 Nov 30, Fernando Pessoa (b.1888), Portuguese poet, died.
(Econ, 10/04/08, p.92)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Pessoa)
1936 Jun 14, G.K. Chesterton (b.1874), English poet-essayist, died at his home in Beaconsfield, England. His poems included “The Secret People" (1915). As president of the Distributist League, he promoted the idea that private property should be divided into smallest possible freeholds and then distributed throughout society.
(Econ, 4/2/05, p.51)(www.online-literature.com/chesterton/)
1936 Aug 16, Spanish poet Garcia Lorca was arrested in Granada. He disappeared shortly thereafter. The 1997 film "The Disappearance of Garcia Lorca" was an attempt to depict the circumstances of his disappearance. Lorca was the author of "Gypsy Ballads," "Blood Wedding" and "The Poet." Spanish poet Fredico Garcia Lorca was shot by Franco's troops after being forced to dig his own grave.
(LVRJ, 11/1/97, p.12B)(HN, 8/19/98)(MT, Spg. ‘99, p.2)
1936 A poetry movement called “the Activists" began in the SF Bay Area. It was led by Lawrence Hart (1900-1996). The movement faded with the rise of the Beat Poets in the 1950s.
(SSFC, 9/4/05, p.F3)
1938 Mar 1, Gabriele d’Annunzio, Italian poet, writer and political leader, died. In 2013 Lucy Hughes-Hallett authored “The Pike: Gabriele d’Annunzio: Poet Seducer and Preacher of War."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriele_d%27Annunzio)
1938 Dec 27, Osip Mandelstam (b.1891), Russian poet born in Poland to Jewish parents, died while in transit to a labor camp. In 1998 Emma Gerstein authored “Moscow Memoirs: Memories of Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam and Literary Russia Under Stalin." An English translation by John Crowfoot became available in 2004.
(SSFC, 9/11/04, p.M3)(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk)
1938 Cesar Vallejo (b.1892), Peruvian poet, died. His 1918 book "The Black Heralds" was translated into English in 2003 by Rebecca Seiferle.
(SSFC, 12/28/03, p.M4)
1939 Jul 27, Michael Longley, Irish poet, was born.
(HN, 7/27/01)
1939 W.H. Auden (1907-1973), Anglo-American poet, authored his poem “Epitaph on a Tyrant."
(Econ, 9/4/10, p.91)
1940 Sep 26, W.H. Davies (b.1871), a Welsh poet, died in England. He had lived the life of a hobo in America and authored “Autobiography of a Supertramp" (1908).
(Econ, 8/31/13, p.14)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._H._Davies)
1941 Feb 5, Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson (b.1864), Australian poet and journalist, died. He is best known for his song “Waltzing Matilda."
(www.whatsthenumber.com/oz/voice/writers/paterson0.htm)(NG, 8/04, p.29)
1941 Aug 31, Marina Tsvetaeva (b.1892), a Russian and Soviet poet and writer, died. She wrote six plays in verse and narrative poems, including The Tsar Maiden (1920), and her epic about the Civil War, The Swans' Encampment, which glorified those who fought against the communists.
(Econ, 3/6/10, p.103)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Tsvetaeva)
1944 Jun, Frank Thompson (23), British soldier and poet, was captured and executed in Bulgaria. In 2012 Peter Conradi authored “A Very English Hero: The Making of Frank Thompson."
(Economist, 9/8/12, p.82)
1944 Violet Kazue de Cristoforo (1917-2007), California poet, authored “Poetic Reflections of the Tule Lake Internment Camp." She was interned from 1942-1946.
(SFC, 10/9/07, p.B5)
1944 Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac met on the campus of Columbia Univ. in NYC. In 2010 Bill Morgan and David Stanford published the edited letters of Ginsberg and Kerouac. Bill Morgan authored “The Typewriter Is Holy: The Complete, Uncensored History of the Beat Generation."
(SSFC, 7/18/10, p.F12)
1945 Jul 20, Paul Valery (b.1871), French poet (Le cimetiere Marin, Mon Faust), died at age 73. He was buried in his home town of Sete.
(SSFC, 6/17/01, p.T10)(MC, 7/20/02)
1945 Adam Zagajewski, poet, was born in Poland. In 1988 he began teaching at the Univ. of Houston as well as in Krakow. His books included “A Defense of Ardor," a collection of essays translated to English in 2004.
(SSFC, 11/28/04, p.E2)
1946 Jul 27, Gertrude Stein (72), US-French author, poet (Ida, Tender Buttons), died in France. Her work included the murder mystery "Blood on the Dining-Room Floor" and “The Biography of Alice B. Toklas" (1933). She once said of Oakland, Ca.: "There is no there there." Painter Francis Rose carved the headstone on her grave at the Pere Lachaise cemetery. A biography of Stein by Linda Wagner-Martin was published in 1996 titled "Favored Strangers." In 2007 Janet Malcolm authored “Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Stein)(SFC, 6/9/96, Z1 p.5)(WSJ, 10/5/99, p.A24)(WSJ, 9/25/07, p.D6)
1947 Paula von Preradovic, Austrian poet, wrote a new Austrian anthem after the old one was pinched by the Germans.
(Econ, 11/24/07, SR p.3)
1948 Jun 4, Hugh Kenner (d.2003 at 80) met for the 1st time with Ezra Pound in a Washington-area mental facility. Pound became his mentor and directed him in a number of literary efforts. In 1951 Kenner turned his thesis into the book: "The Poetry of Ezra Pound." In 1971 Kenner authored "The Pound Era."
(SSFC, 11/30/03, p.A31)
1949 Zang Kejia (d.2004 at 99), poet, edited the "Selected Poems of Chairman Mao."
(SFC, 2/7/04, p.A20)
1950 Feb 20, Dylan Thomas arrived in NYC for his 1st US poetry reading tour.
(www.swansea.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=2488&articleaction=print)
1952 Aug 28, Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, was born.
(HN, 8/28/00)
1953 Nov 9, Welsh author-poet Dylan Thomas died in New York at age 39 during his poetry-reading blitz of the US. In 1955 John Malcolm Brinnin (d.1998 at 81), the man who brought Thomas to America, published "Dylan Thomas in America."
(SFEC, 5/25/97, p.T5)(AP, 11/9/97)(SFC, 6/29/98, p.A19)
1953 Czeslaw Milosz, émigré Polish poet, published “The Captive Mind," in which he unpicked the mangling effects of communist thought.
(Econ, 8/1/09, p.76)
1954 San Francisco State Prof. Ruth Witt-Diamant founded a Poetry Center at SF State.
(SFC, 2/19/04, p.E1)
1954 Strickland Gillilan (b.1869), American poet, died. His poems included "The Reading Mother." "...Richer than I your can never be / I had a mother who read to me."
(SSFC, 4/25/04, p.M6)
1955 Oct 7, Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) his 3,600-word "Howl" at the Six Gallery at 3119 Fillmore. Kenneth Rexroth was the host. Jack Kerouac and Lawrence Ferlinghetti were in the audience. Other readers included Philip Lamantia, Philip Whalen, Michael McClure and Gary Snyder. The Gallery was run as a co-op by poet Robert Duncan, his lover Jess (Burgess Collins) and another artist. In 2004 Jonah Raskin authored "American Scream: Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" and the Making of the Beat Generation." In 2006 Jason Shinder edited “The Poem That Changed America."
(SFEC, 8/29/99, p.D7)(SFC, 10/28/00, p.D1)(SSFC, 4/4/04, p.M2)(SSFC, 4/16/06, p.M3)
1956 Sep 21, Anastasio Somoza Garcia (b.1896), Nicaraguan dictator, was shot by poet Rigoberto Lopez Perez. He died on Sep 29 after being sent to a Panama Canal Zone hospital.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastasio_Somoza_Garc%C3%ADa)
1956 Lawrence Ferlinghetti published a 1st edition of "Howl" by Allen Ginsberg. The 1st 1000 copies were printed in Europe and passed Customs without incident.
(www.citylights.com/His/CLhowlhist.html)
1957 Mar 25, US Police and customs agents seized copies of “Howl" by Allen Ginsberg. In May Ferlinghetti was arrested along with City Lights manager Shigeyoshi Murao (d.1999) on obscenity charges. The defending attorneys were J.W. Ehrlich and Albert Bendich (1929-2015). By the Fall Judge Clayton Horn found the poem of "redeeming social importance." Shig later managed City Lights and authored the occasional "Shig's Review." In 2006 Bill Morgan and Nancy J. Peters edited “Howl On Trial: The Battle for Free Expression."
(SFEC, 11/28/99, BR p.10)(www.citylights.com/His/CLhowlhist.html)(SSFC, 11/5/06, p.M3)(SFC, 1/14/15, p.D3)
1957 Ted Hughes (1930-1998), British poet, published his first book of poetry "Hawk in the Rain." It re-defined the shape of post-war English poetry.
(SFC, 10/30/98, p.A17)(Econ, 11/8/03, p.83)
1958 Jun 28, Alfred Noyes (77), British poet, essayist (Robin Hood, The Highwayman), died.
(MC, 6/28/02)
1958 In China Ai Qing (1910-1996), a poet, was denounced as a rightist and spent the next 18 years in hard labor in the Xinjiang region. His son Ai Weiwei (b.1957), later became renowned as an artist and political activist.
(Econ, 5/5/12, p.82)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ai_Qing)
1960 Jan, The San Francisco Examiner (a Hearst newspaper) offered Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982) a job writing a weekly column. He accepted and by May 1961 the column had proved popular enough that he was asked to do two and sometimes even three per week. Rexroth wrote some 700 columns for the Examiner until June 1967, when he was fired after writing a particularly scathing article about the American police.
(www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/sfe/)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Rexroth)
1960 Alexis Saint-Leger (1887-1975), Guadeloupe-born French poet and diplomat, won the Nobel Prize for literature. He wrote under the pseudonym Saint John Perse.
(http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Leger,+Alexis+Saint-Leger)
1961 Sep, Yevgeny Yevtushenko (b.1933), Russian poet, published his poem “Babi Yar" at the height of the Khrushchev thaw. It recalled the 1941 massacre of over 33,000 Jews at ravine in Kiev, Ukraine.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babi_Yar)
1962 Sep 3, e[dward] e cummings (ee cummings), US poet (Tulips & Chimneys), died at 67.
(MC, 9/3/01)
1962 Alan Dugan (1923-2003) won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for his book "Poems." At the time Dugan worked in a factory where he made plastic vaginas used to demonstrate diaphragm insertion.
(SSFC, 9/7/03, p.A29)
1963 Jan 29, Poet Robert Frost (b.1874) died in Boston at age 88. In 1999 Jay Parini published "Robert Frost: A Life." Lawrance Thompson authored a 3-volume biography (1966-1976).
(AP, 1/29/98)(SFEC, 4/18/99, BR p.3)
1963 Feb 11, Sylvia Plath (30), American writer, committed suicide by gas in London after Ted Hughes left her for another woman. Her autobiographical novel "The Bell Jar" was published this year. She had been married to English poet Ted Hughes (d.1998), who in 1998 published a 198 page book of verse "Birthday Letters" based on their relationship. The woman for whom Hughes left Plath committed suicide 5 years later. Plath’s 1981 "Collected Poems" won a Pulitzer Prize. The Plath book of poems "Ariel" was published after her death. In 2000 her uncensored diaries: "The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath," were edited by Karen V. Kukil. Carl Rollyson authored “American Isis: The Life and Art of Sylvia Plath" (2013). Andrew Wilson authored “Mad Girl’s Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted" (2013).
(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A10)(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.C5)(SFEC, 3/26/00, p.A25)(SFEC, 11/12/00, BR p.1)(SSFC, 2/17/13, p.F5)(Econ, 3/9/13, p.84)
1963 Mar 4, William Carlos Williams (b.1883), American physician and poet, died in Rutherford, NJ. In 2011 Herbert Leibowitz authored “Something Urgent I Have to Say to You": The Life and Works of William Carlos Williams.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Carlos_Williams)(Econ, 12/31/11, p.68)
1963 Sep 3, Louis MacNeice (b.1907), northern Irish poet, died. His name was often subsumed under the collective name of Macspaunday, which referred to the generation of politically-committed 1930s poets: MacNeice, Stephen Spender, W.H. Auden and C. Day-Lewis. MacNeice’s collected poems were published in 2007.
(Econ, 9/29/07, p.89)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_MacNeice)
1963 Giorgos Seferis (1900-1971), Turkish-born Greek poet, won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Seferis was the pen name of Georgios Seferiades
(AP, 10/8/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgos_Seferis)
1963 Nazim Hikmet (b.1902), Salonika-born Turkish poet, died in Moscow.
(www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=291)
1964 Dec 9, Dame Edith Sitwell (d.1964), English poet, died. "Good taste is the worst vice ever invented." A book of her collected poems was published in 2006. In 2011 Richard Greene authored “Edith Sitwell: Avant Garde Poet, English Genius."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Sitwell)(WSJ, 7/22/06, p.P10)(Econ, 2/19/11, p.94)
1964 George Hitchcock (1914-2010), poet and playwright, founded the Kayak poetry magazine in San Francisco. He continued publishing it until 1984 after 64 issues.
(SSFC, 9/5/10, p.C9)
1965 Jan 4, T.S. Eliot, English poet, died in London at age 76. In 1995 Anthony Julius published "T.S. Eliot, Anti-Semitism and Literary Form." Julius was the lawyer who won a divorce settlement of $23 million for Princess Diana in 1996. "Little Gidding" is an Eliot work. In 2015 Robert Crawford authored “Young Eliot: From St. Louis to The Waste Land."
(SFC, 7/17/96, p.E6)(NH, 8/96, p.57)(AP, 1/4/98)(Econ., 2/14/15, p.74
1966 Mar 5, Anna Akhmatova, Russian poet, died in Leningrad. She was born in 1889 as Anna Gorenko near Odessa, Ukraine. In 2005 Elaine Feinstein authored “Anna of All the Russias: A Life of Anna Akhmatova.
(www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Anna_Akhmatova)
1966 Lenore Kandel (1932-2009), NYC-born SF poet, published “The Love Book." It was deemed pornographic and SF police raided the Psychedelic Shop on Haight Street where it was sold. Kandel, born of Russian and Mongol parents, was portrayed as Romana Swartz in Jack Kerouac’s 1962 novel “Big Sur."
(SFC, 10/22/09, p.D6)
1967 May 12, English poet laureate John Masefield died.
(AP, 5/12/07)
1967 May 22, J. Langston Hughes (b.1902), poet laureate, US author (Tambourines to Glory), died of complications following surgery at NY Polyclinic Hospital.
(SSFC, 7/25/04, p.F3)
1967 Jun 7, Author-critic Dorothy Parker (b.1893), famed for her caustic wit, died in NYC. The 1994 film "Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle" starred Jennifer Jason Leigh as the poet Dorothy Parker. It covered 25 years of Parker's life. She left most of her estate to Martin Luther King, Jr.
(AP, 6/7/97)(SFEC, 8/23/98, DB p.43)(SFEC, 9/19/99, Z1 p.3)
1967 Jul 20, Pablo Neruda received the 1st Viareggio-Versile prize.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1967 Jul 22, Carl Sandburg (89), historian and poet (Abraham Lincoln: Prairie Years), died in North Carolina.
(AP, 7/22/07)
1967 Aug 31, Ilya G. Ehrenburg (76), Russian poet and propagandist ("Russians, get your German!"), died.
(MC, 8/31/01)
1967 Sep 1, Siegfried Sassoon (b.1886), WW I English soldier poet, died. His books included “Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man" (1928). In 2005 Max Egremont authored the biography: “Siegfried Sassoon."
(WSJ, 12/1/05, p.D9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_Sassoon)
1968 Aug 13, In Greece there was an assassination attempt against Col. George Papadopoulos (1919-1999), the right-wing military leader, organized by Alexandros Panagoulis (1939-1976), Greek politician and poet.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandros_Panagoulis)
1969 May 4, F. Osbert S. Sitwell (b.1892), English poet (Who Killed Cock Robin?), died at castle Montegufoni near Florence, Italy.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osbert_Sitwell)
1970 Jan 10, Charles Olson (b.1910), American poet, died in NYC. Volume Three of his Maximus Poems appeared posthumously in 1975.
(SFC, 6/12/06, p.D8)(www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/olson/life.htm)
1970 Dec 31, Lorine Niedecker (b.1903), died. She was a Wisconsin-born objectivist-influenced poet.
(SFEC, 4/23/00, BR p.6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorine_Niedecker)
1971 May 23, In California poet Lou Welch (b.1926) walked away from Gary Snider’s residence in the Sierra foothills and was never seen again.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A21)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lew_Welch)
1971 Sep 20, George Seferis (b.1900), Nobel Prize-winning (1963) Greek poet, died. In 2003 Roderick Beaton authored "George Seferis - Waiting for the Angel: A Biography."
(HN, 3/13/01)(Econ, 11/22/03, p.83)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgos_Seferis)
1971 Anne Sexton (1928-1974), American poet and writer, authored "Transformations." It retold classic fairy stories with a Freudian twist and personal references and formed the basis for Conrad Susa’s 1973 opera of the same name. Diane Middlebrook wrote "Anne Sexton: A Biography" in 1991.
(WSJ, 7/2/97, p.A12)(SFC, 6/23/98, p.D1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Sexton)
1971-1973 Josephine Jacobsen (d.2003), poet, writer and critic, was appointed consultant in poetry to the US Library of Congress.
(SSFC, 7/13/03, p.A27)
1972 Jan 7, Poet John Berryman (b.1914), US poet (Imaginary Jew), leaped to his death from a bridge above the Mississippi River. He was teaching a graduate course at the Univ. of Minnesota on America’s character as revealed by its poets. Carl Rakosi took over the class. His former wife, Eileen Simpson, died in 2002. Simpson authored her memoir "Poets in Their Youth" in 1982.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Berryman)(SFEC, 4/23/00, BR p.1)(SFC, 10/26/02, p.A24)
1972 Jan 8, Kenneth Patchen (b.1911), American poet, died in Palo Alto, Ca. He was bed-ridden in his later years from a debilitating spinal injury. His works included "Before the Brave" and "Hurrah for Anything."
(HN, 12/13/99)(SFC, 3/24/00, p.D6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Patchen)
1972 Feb 5, Marianne Moore (b.1887), American poet, died in NYC. Her longest work was the 1923 poem "Marriage." In 1998 her the book: "The Selected letters of Marianne Moore" was edited by Bonnie Costello, Celeste Goodridge and Cristanne Miller. In 2013 Linda Leavell authored “Holding On Upside Down: The Life and Work of Marianne Moore."
(www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap7/moore.html)(WSJ, 1/8/98, p.A7)(Econ, 11/23/13, p.83)
1972 Nov 1, Ezra Pound (b.1885), American poet, died in Italy. In 2007 A. David Moody authored “Ezra Pound: Poet: The Young Genius 1885-1920."
(Econ, 10/20/07, p.117)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra_Pound)
1973 Aug 17, Conrad Aiken (b.1889), American Pulitzer winning poet and novelist, died.
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/caiken.htm)
1973 Sep 23, Pablo Neruda (b.1904), Chilean Nobel laureate poet, died of alleged leukemia. One of his last works, "The Book of Questions," was published in an English translation in 1991. In 2003 Ilan Stavans edited "The Poetry of Pablo Neruda." In 2004 Matilda Urrutia’s “My Life With Pablo Neruda" was translated into English. Neruda’s driver later said the poet was poisoned by government agents.
(SFEC, 6/25/00, BR p.2)(SSFC, 8/31/03, p.M3)(SSFC, 10/31/04, p.M4)(SFC, 6/1/11, p.A2)
1973 Herbert Leibowitz, Manhattan literary critic and college professor, founded Parnassus, a poetry journal. In 2007 he planned his last issue.
(WSJ, 1/25/07, p.D12)
1974 Jan 13, Salvador Novo (b.1904), gay Mexican writer, poet and official chronicler of Mexico City, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Novo)
1974 Oct 4, Anne Sexton (b.1928), American poet, committed suicide in Massachusetts. In 1991 Diane Middlebrook (1939-2007), authored “Anne Sexton: A Biography."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Sexton)(SSFC, 12/16/07, p.A1)
1974 Berdy Kerbabaev (b.1894), a Turkmenistan poet, novelist and playwright, died. He was one of the most noticeable Turkmen writers of the Soviet period.
(www.advantour.com/turkmenistan/culture.htm)
1975 May 10, In El Salvador leftist poet and novelist Roque Dalton (b.1937) was executed by a group of commandos. In 2010 his relatives petitioned prosecutors to file homicide charges against two ex-rebel commanders, who they claim participated in the decision to kill the writer. The complaint named former Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front leader Joaquin Villalobos and Jorge Melendez, who serves in the current government as head of the civil defense office. In 2012 a judge closed the case ruling it's too late for a prosecution.
(AP, 5/15/10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roque_Dalton)(AP, 1/10/12)
1975 Oct, Eugenio Montale (1896-1981), Italian poet, won the Nobel Prize for Literature. In 1999 two collections of his poetry were translated and published in English: Collected Poems 1920-1954" and "Satura 1962-1970."
(SFEC, 2/28/99, BR p.8)
1975 Nov 1, Pier Paolo Pasolini (b.1922), Italian poet, author and director was murdered. A young male prostitute was tried and convicted for the murder in 1976.
(http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/pasolini.htm)
1977 Sep 12, Robert Lowell (b.1917), US poet (Near the Ocean), died of a heart attack in NYC. In 2003 Frank Bidart and David Gewanter edited "Robert Lowell: Collected Poems." In 2005 Saskia Hamilton edited “The Letters of Robert Lowell."
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/rlowell.htm)(SSFC, 7/13/03, p.M6)(Econ, 7/25/05, p.73)
1977 Polish poet Stanislaw Baranczak co-founded the Workers' Defense Committee (KOR), following a brutal communist crackdown on protesting workers. For his activity he was fired from his job at the Adam Mickiewicz University in his native Poznan and his writings were barred from print in Poland. In 1981 he got a three-year contract as lecturer at Harvard but stayed on.
(AP, 12/27/14)
1977 Vicente Aleixandre (1898-1984), Spanish poet, won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
(AP, 10/8/09)
1979 Feb 9, Allen Tate (b.1899), poet and exponent of the New Criticism, died in Nashville.
(WSJ, 8/2/08, p.W9)(http://tinyurl.com/5g27ry)
1979 Aug 28, Konstantin Simonov (b.1915), Russian war correspondent and poet, died in Moscow. His poems included “Wait For Me" (1942).
(www.simonov.co.uk/biography.htm)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Simonov)
1979 Jul 16, Nguyen Chi Thien (1939-2012), Vietnamese poet, managed to pass 400 of his poems to the British ambassador in Hanoi before being arrested. They were later published as “Flowers of Hell" and won for him the Int’l. Poetry Award in 1985.
(Economist, 10/13/12, p.114)
1979 Oct 6, Elizabeth Bishop (b.1911), American poet, died. She had spent 17 years in Brazil and won a Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1956. In 2008 Thomas Travisano and Saskia Hamilton edited “Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell." In 2010 Michael Sledge authored a novel, “The More I Owe You," based on her life.
(Econ, 11/22/08, p.97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Bishop)(SFC, 8/31/10, p.E1)
1979 Odysseus Elytis (1911-1996), Greek poet, won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
(AP, 10/8/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odysseas_Elytis)
1980 Feb 25, Robert Hayden, American poet and educator, died in Ann Arbor, Mich. Hayden had studied under W.H. Auden at the Univ. of Michigan. In 1976 Pres. Gerald Ford appointed him the 1st African-American consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress, a post that later became known as Poet Laureate.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hayden)(LSA, Fall/02, p.7)
1982 Jan 17, Varlan Shalamov, Russian writer, journalist, poet and Gulag survivor, died in Moscow.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varlam_Shalamov)
1984 Apr 15, William Empson (b.1926), English literary critic and poet, died. His 1950 book, “Seven Types of Ambiguity," changed literary criticism. In 2005 John Haffenden authored “William Empson: Volume I, Among the Mandarins." In 2006 Haffenden completed Vol II, “William Empson: Against the Christians."
(Econ, 6/4/05, p.79)(www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1427)(WSJ, 12/23/06, p.P10)
1984 May 19, John Betjeman (b.1906), British poet, died. In 2004 Bevis Hillier authored a 3-volume biography of Betjeman. In 2006 A.N. Wilson authored a single volume biography.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Betjeman)(WSJ, 12/2/06, p.P8)
1984 The Library of Congress renamed the position of Consultant in Poetry to the title Poet Laureate of the US Library of Congress. The title of the consultant's position was officially changed by Public Law 99-194 to Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry on Dec 20, 1985.
(SFC, 4/6/99, p.E5)(www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0411/poetry.html)
1985 Nov 17, Gheorghe Emil Ursu (b.1926), Romanian construction engineer, poet, diarist and dissident, died after being beaten for weeks by police. Security police had raided his home and discovered his diary, in which he had joted down scathing secret poems by Nina Cassian about Nicolae Ceausescu self-importance and stupidity.
(Econ, 5/17/14, p.86)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gheorghe_Ursu)
1985 Dec 2, Philip Larkin (b.1922), English poet, died of esophageal cancer. He had received the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 1965. His books included “High Windows" (1974). In 2012 “The Complete Poems of Philip Larkin," edited by Archie Burnett, was published.
(WSJ, 12/8/07, p.W18)(Econ, 1/21/12, p.94)(Econ, 1/21/12, p.94)
1985 Dec 20, The passage of US Public Law 99-194 established the position of American Poet Laureate. In 1986 Robert Penn Warren became designated as the 1st Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry.
(www.barclayagency.com/lc_press.html)
1986 Jan, Bob Kaufman, Beat poet, died in San Francisco at 60. He was born in New Orleans and had been called the "black American Rimbaud." His work includes "Cranial Guitar." Much of his work was preserved due to the diligence of his wife Eileen. Kaufman took a vow of silence after the assassination of John F. Kennedy and began speaking again after the Vietnam war ended. His last year was spent under the care of his friend Lyn Wildey.
(SFC, 7/6/96, p.A15)(SFC, 7/20/96, p.A13)(I-witness)
1986 Feb 26, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and author Robert Penn Warren was named the first poet laureate of the US by Librarian of Congress Daniel J. Boorstin. Warren was awarded the post of US poet laureate consultant to the Library of Congress as the name was changed from consultant in poetry.
(SSFC, 7/13/03, p.A27)(AP, 2/26/06)
1986 Jul 25, Marc Smith, NYC construction worker turned poet, held the first poetry slam at the Green Mill jazz club in Chicago. He pitted writers against one another in a test of writing skills and performance.
(Econ, 8/16/08, p.83)(www.slampapi.com/new_site/background.htm)
1987 Oct 22, Nobel prize for literature was awarded to Joseph Brodsky (1940-1996). At an interview in the Stockholm airport, to a question: "You are an American citizen who is receiving the Prize for Russian-language poetry. Who are you, an American or a Russian?", he responded: "I am Jewish".
(http://tinyurl.com/zx2yz)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Brodsky)
1988 Feb 3, Robert Duncan, American poet, died. He and his partner Jess Collins (d.2004) along with Harry Jacobus founded the King Ubu Gallery in SF in 1953.
(SFC, 1/7/04, p.A19)(www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/duncan/life.htm)
1988 Aug 2, Raymond Carver (b.1938), poet, short story writer (Furious Season), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_2)
1989 Sep 15, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Penn Warren (b.1905), the first poet laureate of the United States, died in Stratton, Vt., at age 84. He authored 16 poetry collections and 10 novels that included the 1946 "All the King’s Men."
(WSJ, 2/27/97, p.A15)(AP, 9/14/99)
1990 Seamus Heaney (b.1939), Nobel Prize winning poet (1995), wrote the play "The Cure at Troy" based on Sophocles’ play "Philoctetes."
(WSJ, 12/3/97, p.A20)(www.ibiblio.org/ipa/poems/heaney/biography.php)
1992 Jul 9, Poet Adrienne Rich rejected the US government National Medal for the Arts award due to radical disparities of wealth and power in America.
(SFC, 7/10/97, p.A10)
1992 Jun 14, Mona Van Duyn (1921-2004) became the first woman to be named the nation's poet laureate by the Library of Congress.
(AP, 6/14/97)
1992 Oct 8, Derek Walcott (1930-2013), West Indies born poet (Saint Lucia), was named winner of the Nobel Prize in literature. In 1997 his collection of poems "The Bounty" was published. In 2014 an anthology of his poetry was published.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, BR p.1)(AP, 10/8/97)(Econ, 3/20/10, p.94)(Econ, 4/26/14, p.81)
1992 Audre Lorde (b.1934), American influential black lesbian poet, died of cancer. In 1996 the TV documentary: "A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde was shown." In 2004 Alexis De Veaux authored "Warrior Poet: A biography of Audre Lorde."
(SFC, 6/18/96, p.B7)(SSFC, 4/18/04, p.M2)
1993 Jul 13, A.K. Ramanujan (b.1929), Indian poet and scholar, died in Chicago. In 1999 his collected essays were published.
(WSJ, 4/4/09, p.W8)(www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Ramanujan.html)
1994 Sep 10, Amy Clampitt (b.1920), American poet, died. Her books included “Kingfisher" (1983). In 2005 Willard Spiegelman edited her selected letters: “Love, Amy: The Selected Letters of Amy Clampitt."
(WSJ, 7/22/05, p.W7)(www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=890)
1995 Feb 6, Poet James Merrill (b.1926) died in Tucson, Arizona, from AIDS. In 2001 Alison Lurie authored "Familiar Spirits: A Memoir of James Merrill and David Jackson." In 2015 Langdon Hammer authored James Merrill: Life and Art."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Merrill)(SSFC, 3/11/01, BR p.3)(Econ., 4/18/15, p.75)
1995 Jul 16, Stephen Spender (b.1909), English poet and critic, died. In 2004 John Sutherland authored “Stephen Spender: The Authorized Biography."
(HN, 2/28/01)(Econ, 6/19/04, p.81)
1996 Mar 18, Odysseus Elytis, Greek poet and Nobel Prize winner (1979), died in Athens at age 84.
(WSJ, 3/19/96, p.A-1)(http://dpsinfo.com/dps/mnames.html)
1996 Apr 13, George Mackay Brown (b.1921), Scottish poet and novelist, died in his hometown of Stromness, on the Orkney Mainland. In 2006 Maggie Ferguson authored “George Mackay Brown: The Life."
(Econ, 6/3/06, p.81)(http://tinyurl.com/fdgky)
1997 Apr 5 Allen Ginsberg (b.1926), the counterculture guru who shattered conventions as poet laureate of the Beat Generation, died in New York City at age 70. His last book of poems "Death and Fame: Last Poems 1993-1997" was edited by Bob Rosenthal, Peter Hale and Bill Morgan following his death. In 2000 Bill Morgan edited "Deliberate Prose: Selected Essays 1952-1995." In 2001 David Carter edited "Allen Ginsberg: Spontaneous Mind, The Selected Interviews, 1958-1996." In 2006 Bill Morgan authored “I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg."
(SFEC, 4/6/97, p.A11)(AP, 5/5/97)(WSJ, 4/2/99, p.W6)(SFEC, 5/9/99, BR p.3)(SFEC, 3/5/00, DB p.4)(SSFC, 4/8/01, BR p.2)(SSFC, 11/5/06, p.M1)
1997 Jul 27, Mohammed Mahdi al-Jawahri, classical Arab poet, died in Syria. He was the most famous poet of Iraq from whence he fled in 1979. His work included "Between Passion and Feeling" (1928) and "Al Jawahri’s Divan" (1935).
(SFC, 8/2/97, p.A21)
1998 Jan 27, In Britain poet laureate Ted Hughes won the $33,000 Whitbread Book of the Year award for his "Tales of Ovid."
(SFC, 1/28/98, p.E6)
1998 Jul 28, In Poland Zbigniev Herbert (b.1924), poet and essayist, died at age 73 in Warsaw. He insisted that civilization depended on artists’ staking out clear moral positions resistant to the winds of history and ideology. In 1999 John and Bogdana Carpenter translated "Elegy for the Departure and Other Poems," and "The King of the Ants: Mythological Essays."
(SFC, 7/30/98, p.B2)(SFEC, 3/28/99, BR p.8)
1998 Oct 7, Ted Hughes, poet laureate of England, won the $16,930 Forward Prize for best poetry collection for his "Birthday Letters."
(SFC, 10/8/98, p.E3)
1998 Oct 28, Ted Hughes, British poet, died at age 68. His work included 35 books of poems, 3 works of prose, 2 opera libretti, and 4 stage plays. In 2007 Christopher Reid edited “Letters of Ted Hughes."
(SFC, 10/30/98, p.A17)(Econ, 11/24/07, p.90)
1999 Jul 24, Shoukry Ayyad, Egyptian poetry critic, died at age 78. His 20 books on Arabic poetry, language and theater included "The Hero in Literature and Fables," "Music of Poetry," and Language and Creativity."
(SFC, 7/27/99, p.A17)
2000 Oct 1, Stanley Kunitz (95) succeeded Robert Pinsky as the US poet laureate.
(SFEC, 10/22/00, BR p.2)
2000 Dec 30, Russia’s Pres. Putin endorsed the new national anthem with words by poet Sergei Mikhalkov (1913-2009) and the original Soviet music. Mikhalkov adjusted the text again, replacing references to Lenin and the Soviets with a paean to Russia's "divinely protected" forests and meadows that span from "southern seas to the polar lands."
(SFC, 12/31/00, p.B5)(AP, 8/27/09)
2002 Aug 11, Jiri Kolar (87), a Czech poet and artist known mainly for his pioneering work in the art of collage, died in Prague. His poetry books included "Birth Certificate" (1941)
(AP, 8/12/02)
2002 Aug 15, Larry Rivers (78), painter, sculptor, jazz musician and poet, died in Southampton, NY. Rivers was born as Yitzroch Grossberg in Bronx, NY.
(SFC, 8/16/02, p.A25)(NW, 8/26/02, p.9)
2002 Aug 28, Amiri Baraka, poet known as LeRoi Jones until 1968, was proclaimed the poet laureate for New Jersey. Gov. Jim McGreevey later regretted the proclamation following Baraka's poem "Somebody Blew Up America."
(WSJ, 10/3/02, p.D6)
2002 Tsutomu Yamaguchi (1916-2010), twice-victim of the 1945 nuclear bombs in Japan, published a collection of 31-syllable poems (tanka) that reflected on his WWII ordeal.
(Econ, 1/16/10, p.85)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Yamaguchi)
2003 Apr 5, Kirby Doyle (70), San Francisco Beat poet and writer, died.
(SFC, 5/14/03, p.A17)
2003 Jul 6, Kathleen Raine (95), a poet and scholar whose verse explored the realms of nature and the spirit, died in London. "Stone and Flower" (1943), illustrated by Barbara Hepworth, was her first published collection, followed by "Living in Time" (1946) and "The Pythoness" (1949).
(AP, 7/10/03)
2003 Aug 7, F.T. Prince (90), South African poet, died in Southampton, England. His work included the WWII poem "Soldiers Bathing."
(SFC, 8/13/03, p.A23)
2003 Aug 16, Haroldo de Campos (73), Brazilian poet, died in Sao Paulo. He was the best know of the Brazilian Concrete poets.
(SFC, 8/26/03, p.A19)
2003 Aug 28, The US Library of Congress said it would name Louise Gluck as the nation's poet laureate. Her 9 books included "The Wild Iris" (1992).
(SFC, 8/29/03, p.A3)
2003 Nov 3, Rasul Gamzatov, Dagestan poet, died in Moscow. He wrote in Avar, a language spoken by some 500,000 people in Dagestan. He also wrote the prose work "My Dagestan."
(SFC, 11/4/03, p.A21)
2003 Nov 4, Charles Causley (86), English poet, died.
(Econ, 11/22/03, p.85)
2003 Dec 12, Fadwa Toukan (b.1917), Palestinian poet, died in Nablus at age 86.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.A31)
2003 Felix Dennis, publisher of Maxim magazine, published his 1st volume of poetry “A Glass Half Full."
(WSJ, 2/6/04, p.A6)
2004 Feb 6, It was reported that John Barr, a Wall Street banker, was named president of the Chicago-based Poetry Foundation. He replaced Joseph Parisi.
(WSJ, 2/6/04, p.A6)(SSFC, 6/27/04, p.M2)
2004 Mar 12, Natan Yonatan (81), Israeli poet, died near Tel Aviv.
(SFC, 3/13/04, p.B8)
2004 Apr 25, Thom Gunn (b.1929), British-born poet, died in SF at age 74. His 1st book, titled "Fighting Terms" (1954), was recognized as part of the British group called "The Movement." He moved from England to America in 1954 to live with his male lover and explore the California culture.
(SFC, 4/28/04, p.B7)(Econ, 5/8/04, p.83)
2004 Jun 3, Eugene Ruggles (b.1935), SF poet, died in Petaluma, Ca. His books included “Lifeguard in the Snow" (1977).
(SFC, 6/4/04, B6)
2004 Jun 24, Carl Rakosi (100), American poet, died in SF.
(SFC, 7/2/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 13, Christopher Hewitt (58), disabled gay poet, died. He was among the many poets to have read at the Café Babar.
(SFC, 7/21/04, p.B7)
2004 Aug 12, Ted Kooser of Lincoln, Nebraska, replaced Louise Gluck as US poet laureate.
(SFC, 8/13/04, p.E20)
2004 Aug 14, Czeslaw Milosz (93), Polish poet and Nobel laureate (1980), died in Krakow. He was known for his intellectual and emotional works about some of the worst cruelties of the 20th century. Milosz was born on June 30, 1911, in Szetejnie, now Lithuania, and studied law at the University in Vilnius. There, he published his first book of poems, "Three Winters," in 1936. In 2006 Cynthia L. Haven edited the book “Czeslaw Milosz: Conversations."
(AP, 8/14/04)(Econ, 8/21/04, p.72)(SSFC, 9/24/06, p.M5)
2004 Oct 21, Anthony Hecht (81), American poet, died in Washington DC.
(WSJ, 10/26/04, p.D8)
2004 Dec 2, Mona Van Duyn (b.1921), US poet laureate (1992), died at her home in University City, Missouri.
(SFC, 12/4/04, p.B7)
2005 Mar 7, Philip Lamantia (77), SF Surrealist poet, died in North Beach. His 9 books included “Erotic Poems" (1946).
(SFC, 3/11/05, p.B7)
2005 Mar 30, Robert Creeley (b.1926), US poet, died in Odessa, Texas.
(SFC, 4/1/05, p.B7)
2005 May 25, Steve Mason (65), considered the poet laureate of the Vietnam War, died in Ashland, Ore. His books included “Johnny’s Song: Poetry of a Vietnam Veteran" (1986).
(SFC, 5/31/05, p.B4)
2005 Jun 9, Richard Eberhart (101), Pulitzer Prize winning poet, died in New Hampshire.
(http://tinyurl.com/d72om)
2005 Jul 7, Gustaf Sobin (69), American-born writer and poet, died in France. His work included the 2000 novel “The Fly-Truffler."
(SFC, 7/13/05, p.B7)
2006 Jun, A fax informed Donald Hall (77), former poet laureate of New Hampshire, that he would be the next poet laureate of the US.
(AP, 6/14/06)
2006 Sep 1, Hungarian poet Gyorgy Faludy (95), a legend of resistance to the rise of Nazism and Communism, died at his home in Budapest. He spent 1950-1953 in the Stalinist concentration camp at Recsk. Faludy won international fame with his autobiographical novel "My Happy Days in Hell" in the 1960s, which related his escape from fascist Hungary and his return, and imprisonment, in a country under communist rule.
(Reuters, 9/2/06)(Econ, 9/16/06, p.96)
2006 Edith Grossman published “The Golden Age: Poems of the Spanish Renaissance," her English translations from the original Spanish works of 8 poets.
(SSFC, 9/3/06, p.M3)
2006 Abu Dhabi’s government Authority for Culture and Heritage launched The Million's Poet to encourage poetry.
(AP, 3/23/10)
2007 Jul 15, Mahmoud Darwish, the world's most recognized Palestinian poet, delivered a stinging tirade against Palestinian infighting in his first public appearance in decades in the Israeli city of Haifa.
(AP, 7/16/07)
2007 Jul 18, Sekou Sundiata (b.1948), black poet and activist born as Robert Franklin Feaster, died of heart failure in Westchester, NY.
(SFC, 7/28/07, p.B5)
2007 Nov 8, Samina Malik (23), who called herself the "Lyrical Terrorist" and penned poems with titles including "How To Behead," became the first woman to be convicted under Britain’s terrorism legislation.
(AFP, 11/8/07)
2007 Nov 15, Berkeley poet Robert Haas won the National Book Award for his recent collection “Time and Materials."
(SFC, 11/16/07, p.A2)
2007 Dec 15, Diane Middlebrook (b.1939), poet, biographer and teacher, died in SF. Her books included “Anne Sexton: A Biography" (1991).
(SSFC, 12/16/07, p.A1)
2007 Juan Gelman (b.1930), Argentine poet, won the Cervantes Prize, the most prestigious award for Spanish-language literature.
(AP, 8/28/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Gelman)
2008 Jan 12, Angel Gonzalez (82), one of Spain's most prominent poets and member of a literary generation known for its opposition to the dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco, died.
(AP, 1/14/08)
2008 Jan 16, In New Zealand Hone Tuwhare (86), the first Maori poet to be published in English and one of New Zealand's most celebrated verse writers, died.
(AP, 1/17/08)
2008 Mar 22, Michael Kassel (54), San Francisco blues musician (the Hellhounds) poet known as Vampyre Mike, died after a long illness. His books included “Graveyard Golf" and “Going for the Low Blow."
(SSFC, 4/20/08, p.B6)
2008 Apr 17, Aime Cesaire (b.1913), a Martinique poet honored throughout the French-speaking world and a crusader for West Indian rights, died.
(AP, 4/17/08)
2008 Aug 9, Mahmoud Darwish (67), a Palestinian poet, died, died in Houston, Texas. His poetry eloquently told of his people's experiences of exile, occupation and infighting. His 1973 work “Journal of an Ordinary Grief" was translated to English in 2010.
(AP, 8/10/08)(Econ, 8/23/08, p.75)(Econ, 10/23/10, p.103)
2008 Sep 28, Konstantin Pavlov (b.1933), Bulgarian poet and screenwriter, died. He was among the few Bulgarian intellectuals who dared to assert their professional independence during the 1945-89 communist regime. Some of his most popular volumes of poetry are "Sweet Agony" (1991), "The Murder of the Sleeping Man" (1992) and "A Long Time Ago..." (1998).
(AP, 9/30/08)
2008 Oct 21, Jordanian police arrested a local writer for incorporating verses of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, into his love poetry. Islam Samhan, published his collection of poems, "Grace like a Shadow," without the approval of the Jordanian government, and authorities said it insults the holy book.
(AP, 10/21/08)
2009 Jan 5, Turkey restored the citizenship of its most famous poet Monday in a symbolic step meant to show it was addressing criticism of its human rights record in hopes of joining the European Union. Turkey had stripped Nazim Hikmet of his nationality in 1951 at the height of the Cold War because of his communist views, branded him a traitor and imprisoned him for more than a decade. He died in exile in Moscow in 1963.
(AP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 18, Moldovan poet Grigore Vieru (b.1935) died in a car crash. He was admired for his courage in promoting Romanian, the country's native language, when Moldova was a Soviet republic. In the 1970s, he wrote "The Little Bee," Moldova's first Romanian-language school manual for young children.
(AP, 1/19/09)
2009 Feb 20, Christopher Nolan (43), an Irish poet and novelist, died in Dublin. He had refused to let cerebral palsy get in the way of his writing. Using a "unicorn stick" strapped to his forehead to tap the keys of a typewriter, Nolan laboriously wrote out messages and, eventually, poems and books as well. His autobiography, "Under the Eye of the Clock: The Life Story of Christopher Nolan," won the prestigious Whitbread Award in 1988.
(AP, 2/22/09)(Econ, 2/28/09, p.91)
2009 Apr 28, Ursula Askham Fanthorpe (b.1929), a highly regarded English poet, died near her home in Wotton-under-Edge in western England. She was first inspired by the human tragedy she saw in a neurological hospital.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 May 1, Britain awarded the role of national poet laureate to Carol Ann Duffy (53), the first woman to hold a post that has been filled by William Wordsworth, Alfred Lord Tennyson and Ted Hughes. Duffy, a gay woman, has published more than 30 books, plays and children's stories as well as poems that mix accessible modern language with traditional forms.
(AP, 5/1/09)(SFC, 5/2/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 3, David Bromige (75), London-born poet and former Sonoma State Univ. professor, died in Sebastopol, Ca. He was Sonoma County’s 2nd poet laureate (2001-2003).
(SFC, 6/17/09, p.B4)
2010 Mar 17, In Abu Dhabi Hissa Hilal, only her eyes visible through her black veil, delivered a blistering poem against Muslim preachers "who sit in the position of power" but are "frightening" people with their fatwas, or religious edicts, and "preying like a wolf" on those seeking peace. She presented her 15-verse poem on the live TV “The Million's Poet" program.
(AP, 3/23/10)
2010 May 30, Peter Orlovsky (76), poet and partner of Allen Ginsberg, died in Vermont.
(SFC, 6/3/10, p.C5)
2010 Nov 3, Purushottama Lal (81), Indian poet and publisher, died. He published some 3,500 titles of Indian writers in English.
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.105)
2011 Jan 17, John Ross (72), US poet, author, journalist and political activist who lived in Mexico and wrote extensively on its leftist political movements, died of liver cancer. His books included "Rebellion from the Roots: Zapatista Uprising in Chiapas."
(AP, 1/18/11)
2011 Aug 22, Samuel Menashe (85), New York City poet, died.
(Econ, 9/3/11, p.87)
2011 Oct 6, The Nobel Prize in literature was awarded to Sweden’s top poet Tomas Transtromer (80).
(AP, 10/7/11)
2011 Dec 2, Christopher Logue (85), English poet, died.
(Econ, 12/17/11, p.166)
2011 Jack Foley (71), Oakland, Ca., poet, authored “Visions and Affiliations: A California Literary Time Line Part One," a 1,300 page chrono-encyclopedia of Bay Area poets and poetry.
(SFC, 8/20/11, p.E1)
2011 Liao Yiwu, exiled Chinese poet, published his memoir “For a Song and a Hundred Sons: A Poet’s Journey Thjrough a Chinese Prison" in Taiwan and Germany. Earlier versions were were seized by police in 1995 and 2001. It was translated to english in 2013.
(SSFC, 7/7/13, p.F4)
2012 Jan 17, In China Zhu Yufu (58), a writer and democracy advocate, was charged with subversion in Hangzhou for writing a poem urging citizens to gather to defend their freedoms. In February Yufu was sentenced to 7 years in prison.
(SFC, 1/18/12, p.A3)(SFC, 2/11/12, p.A2)
2012 Feb 1, In Poland Wislawa Szymborska (b.1923), Nobel-winning poet (1996), died. She published fewer than 400 poems.
(AP, 2/9/12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wis%C5%82awa_Szymborska)
2012 Mar 27, Adrienne Rich (b.1929), American feminist poet, died in her Santa Cruz, Ca., home after a long struggle with rheumatoid arthritis.
(SFC, 3/29/12, p.A1)
2012 Jun 7, The US Library of Congress named Natasha Trethewey, Mississippi’s top poet, as the nation’s poet laureate.
(SFC, 6/7/12, p.A9)
2012 Oct 2, Nguyen Chi Thien (73), Vietnamese poet, died in Orange County, Ca. In 1979 he managed to pass 400 of his poems to the British ambassador in Hanoi before being arrested. They were later published as “Flowers of Hell" and won for him the Int’l. Poetry Award in 1985.
(Economist, 10/13/12, p.114)
2012 Nov 13, Jack Gilbert (b.1925), American lyrical poet, died in Berkeley.
(SFC, 11/14/12, p.C3)
2012 Nov 29, Qatari poet Muhammad ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami was sentenced to life in prison for an Arab Spring-inspired verse that officials claim insulted Qatar's emir and encouraged the ruler's overthrow. Al-Ajami was jailed in November 2011, months after an Internet video was posted of him reciting "Tunisian Jasmine." His life sentence was later cut on appeal to 15 years.
(AP, 11/29/12)(Econ, 12/7/13, p.63)
2013 Apr 8, Chilean forensic experts exhumed the body of Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda, trying to solve a four-decade mystery about the 1973 death of one the greatest poets of the 20th century.
(AP, 4/8/13)
2013 Aug 30, Seamus Heaney (74), Ireland's foremost poet and Nobel Prize winner (1995), died in Dublin after a half-century exploring the beauty of Ireland and the political torment within the nation's soul.
(AP, 8/30/13)
2013 Sep 25, The body of poet Kofi Awoonor (78) was returned to Ghana. He was among the 72 civilians shot down by Islamic extremists at the Westgate mall in Nairobi. He had come Nairobi to take part in a literary festival.
(AP, 9/25/13)
2013 Nov 29, Russian poet Natalia Gorbanevskaya (77) died in Paris. She was among the eight demonstrators arrested in in 1968 in Moscow’s Red Square for protesting the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
(Econ, 12/7/13, p.94)
2013 Dec 3, Egyptian poet Ahmed Fouad Negm (84), renowned for his revolutionary poetry and outspoken criticism of Arab political leaders, died. He became recognized as a voice of protest in 1967 when he wrote poems on the Arab-Israeli war, which were highly acclaimed.
(AFP, 12/3/13)
2014 Jan 9, Amiri Baraka (b.1934), poet, playwright and black nationalist, died in New Jersey. He was born as Everett LeRoi Jones and changed his name in 1965 following the assassination of Malcolm X. His play “Dutchman" won the 1964 Obie Award for best American play.
(SFC, 1/10/14, p.D5)
2014 Jan 14, In Mexico Juan Gelman, the celebrated Argentine poet and fierce critic of the South American nation's "dirty war" against leftists, died in Mexico City.
(Reuters, 1/14/14)
2014 Apr 14, Romanian poet and translator Nina Cassian (89) died in NYC. She had obtained political asylum in the US after the Communist-era secret police found her critical poems scribbled in a friend's diary.
(AP, 4/16/14)(Econ, 5/17/14, p.86)
2014 May 28 Maya Angelou (b.1928), American poet, writer and civil rights activist, died at her home in Winston-Salem, NC. Her 1969 memoir “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" was the first of her seven memoirs.
(SFC, 5/29/14, p.A11)(Econ, 6/7/14, p.98)
2014 Aug 19, Iranian poet Simin Behbahani (87) died.
(Econ, 8/30/14, p.78)
2014 Aug 27, Bulgarian poet Valeri Petrov (born as Valeri Nissim Mevorah in 1920), died. His many translations included the complete works of Shakespeare.
(AP, 8/27/14)
2014 Oct 9, Poet Carolyn Kizer (89), 1985 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her collection “Yin," died in Sonoma, Ca.
(SSFC, 10/12/14, p.C8)
2014 Nov 28, Saeed Akl (b.1912), Lebanon's leading poet, died. Some of his most famous poems were sung by Lebanon's top singer, Fayrouz, including the emotional "Take Me Back to My Country," a song that was played endlessly on radios during the country's 15-year civil war.
(AP, 11/28/14)
2014 Nov 29, Mark Strand, former US poet laureate (1990-1991), died in Brooklyn. He won a 1999 Pulitzer Prize for his collection “Blizzard of One."
(SSFC, 11/30/14, p.A14)
2014 Dec 26, Former Harvard lecturer Stanislaw Baranczak (68), Poland's outstanding poet, translator and dissident, died at his home near Boston, Mass.
(AP, 12/27/14)
2015 Jan 26, Eileen Kaufman (93), former wife of SF Beat poet Bob Kaufman (d.1986), died at a senior home in Richmond, Ca. It was her efforts got Bob Kaufman’s collection: “Solitudes Crowded With Loneliness" published in 1965.
(SFC, 2/4/15, p.D2)
2015 Jan 28, American poet Steve Sanfield (b.1937), founder of the Sierra Storytelling Festival, died at his home on the San Juan Ridge in Nevada Ct., Ca. His work included 30 books.
(SFC, 2/12/15, p.D3)
2015 Jan 29, Rod McKuen (b.1933), poet and song-writer, died in Beverly Hills. His work included some 200 albums and over 30 collections of poetry. Some of his best-known songs, including “If You Go Away" and “Seasons in the Sun" were written with Belgian composer Jacques Brell.
(SFC, 1/30/15, p.A10)
2015 Mar 26, Tomas Transtromer (83), Swedish poet and Nobel laureate (2011), died.
(SFC, 3/28/15, p.A2)
2015 May 14, Franz Wright (62), American Pulitzer Prize winning poet, died in Waltham, Mass. He was the son of James Wright, another Pulitzer Prize winning poet.
(SFC, 5/16/15, p.A6)
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645BC Archilochus (b.~680BC), Greek poet (Archilochos, Archilocos), died about this time. He lived on the island of Paros and his innovative poetry, in various meters, was the first to focus upon personal experiences and emotions.
(Econ, 12/3/11, TQ p.6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archilochus)
278BC Qu Yuan (b.~340BC), Chinese poet and scholar, died. His poems included “The Lament," written following the capture of Yingdu, capital of Chu, by General Bai Qi of the state of Qin.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qu_Yuan)
100BC The Greek poet Meleager gathered a collection of poems in his “anthologia" (The Greek Anthology).
(WSJ, 11/15/08, p.W10)
55BC Lucretius (b.~99BC), a Roman poet and philosopher, died about this time. He had authored “On the Nature of Things" (De Rerum Natura), which laid out in 7,400 lines of Latin verse the radical philosophy of the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341BC-270BC). The work disappeared in the Middle Ages and lay largely forgotten until 1417, when bibliophile Poggio Bracciolini stumbled on the work in a monastery in southern Germany.
(SSFC, 12/18/11, p.F7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucretius)
54BC Gaius Valerius Catullus (b.~84BC), Roman poet, died about this time. He became famous for his epicurean lifestyle and erotic poems.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catullus)(Econ, 2/23/08, p.103)
37BC Virgil (b.70BC), Roman poet, authored the 4th of his Eclogues. This included text regarding the newborn son of Consul Polio in which Virgil said the child would initiate a golden age in which lion and lamb would lie together amid peace and plenty. Early Christians took this as a prediction of Christ.
(WSJ, 12/29/07, p.W12)
699 Li Po (d.762), classical Chinese poet, was born. His poems included "Drinking Alone With the Moon."
(SFC, 10/30/03, p.A26)
814 Abu-Nuwas al-Hasan ben Hani al-Hakami (b.756), one of the greatest of classical Arabic poets, died. He also composed in Persian on occasion. Born in the city of Ahvaz in Persia, of an Arab father and a Persian mother, he became a master of all the contemporary genres of Arabic poetry. Abu Nuwas has entered the folkloric tradition, and he appears several times in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. His witty and humorous poetry, which dealt not with the traditional desert themes, but with urban life and the joys of wine and drinking (khamriyyat - khamriyaat), and ribald humor (mujuniyyat).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Nuwas)(Econ, 12/20/03, p.68)(Econ, 8/18/12, p.55)
1010 Abolqasem Firdawsi (Ferdowsi), a Persian poet, completed the “Shahnameh," or “Book of Kings." It is an epic of more than 50,000 rhyming couplets weaving the history of ancient shahs with myth and legend. One might call it the Iliad of Persia. Over the centuries shahs have had the poem copied and illustrated by the best artists of the day. In 2006 Dick Harris made an abridged translation to English in prose.
(WSJ, p. A-18, 10/13/94)(WSJ, 3/7/06, p.D8)
1058 Al-Ma’arri (b.973), a blind Syrian philosopher, poet and writer, died. He attacked the dogmas of religion and rejected the claim that Islam or any other religion possessed the truths they claimed.
(Econ, 7/13/13, SR p.13)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ma%CA%BFarri)
1207 Sep 30, Jalal ud-din Rumi (Jelaluddin Rumi, d.1273), Persian poet and mystic was born in the area of Balkh, Afghanistan. He later fled the Mongol invasions with his family to Konya (Iconium), Anatolia. His work “Mathwani" (Spiritual Couplets) filled 6 volumes and had a great impact on Islamic civilization. He founded the Mevlevi order of Sufis, later known as the “whirling dervishes." In 1998 a film was made about the Sufi poet’s influence on the 20th century. In 1998 Kabir Helminski edited “The Rumi Collection" with translation by Robert Bly and others. His work also included the “Shams I-Tabriz" in which he dismissed the terminology of Jew, Christian and Muslim as “false distinctions." The poet Rumi was also known as Mowlana.
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.B5)(SFEC, 9/20/98, DB p.50)(SFEC, 10/25/98, BR p.6)(WSJ, 9/7/01, p.A14)(SSFC, 10/28/01, p.B7)(SSFC, 4/1/07, p.E3)
1265 May 9, Dante Alighieri, Italian poet (Divine Comedy), was born.
(WUD, 1994 p.367)(MC, 5/9/02)
1304 Jul 20, Francisco Petrarch (d.1374), Italian poet and scholar, founder of Renaissance Humanism, was born in Arezzo. He was educated at Avignon and saw himself as a Florentine, Italian, and man of the world. He was a poet and autodidact who never stopped studying until his death.
(V.D.-H.K.p.131)(HN, 7/20/98)
1321 Sep 13, Dante Alighieri, author (Divine Comedy), died. [See Sep 14]
(MC, 9/13/01)
1321 Sep 14, Dante Alighieri author of the "Divine Comedy," died of malaria just hours after finishing writing "Paradiso." The poem was completed in Italian rather than Latin just before his death and helped make Italian the dominant linguistic force in European literature for the next several centuries. [see Sep 13]
(HFA, '96, p.38)(WSJ, 3/26/99, p.W2)(HN, 9/14/00)
1343 Geoffrey Chaucer (d.1400), English author, poet and diplomat, was born about this time.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Chaucer)(WSJ, 9/18/00, p.A36)
1374 Jul 18, Francesco Petrarch (69), Italian poet (Italia Mia), died.
(SSFC, 7/25/04, p.E3)
1389-1390 Hafez (Khwaja Shams ud-Din Hafiz) (b.1325/26), Persian poet, died about this time.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafez)(www.thesongsofhafiz.com/)(SSFC, 10/23/05, p.E3)
1400 Oct 25, Geoffrey Chaucer (b.~1343), author (Canterbury Tales), died in London. In 1965 Charles Muscatine (1920-2010) authored “Chaucer and the French Tradition: A Study in Style and Meaning."
(AP, 10/25/97)(WSJ, 9/18/00, p.A36)(SFC, 3/16/10, p.C5)
1479 Jorge Manrique (b.1440), Spanish military hero and poet, died.
(SSFC, 9/3/06, p.M3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Manrique)
1529 Jun 21, John Skelton (69), English poet, died.
(MC, 6/21/02)
1533 Jul 6, Ludovico Ariosto (57), Italian poet (Orlando Furioso), died.
(MC, 7/6/02)
1534 Gratien du Pont, a French poet, published a chessboard with 64 rhyming insults to females, one for each square.
(Econ, 7/10/04, p.76)
1536 May, English poet Thomas Wyatt was imprisoned in the Tower of London for allegedly committing adultery with Anne Boleyn.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Wyatt_(poet))
1541 Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542), British poet, authored his “Defence," an attempt to get out of the Tower of London where he faced charges of treason.
(Econ, 5/7/11, p.91)
1542 Sep 24, Thomas Wyatt (b.1503), British poet, died. He is credited with introducing the sonnet into English. In 2011 Nicola Shulman authored “Graven With Diamonds: The Many Lives of Thomas Wyatt, Courtier, Poet, Assassin."
(Econ, 5/7/11, p.91)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Wyatt_%28poet%29)
1550 Apr 12, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, was born (d.1604). Some claimed that he was responsible for all the 37 plays, 154 sonnets and 2 long narrative poems that are attributed to William Shakespeare. De Vere was first advanced as the author of Shakespeare’s work in 1918 by English schoolmaster J. Thomas Looney.
(SFC, 4/26/97, p.E1)(WSJ, 5/1/97, p.A16)(WSJ, 4/18/09, p.A2)
1557 Richard Tottel edited “Songes and Sonnettes," later referred to as “Tottle’s Miscellany." This came to be regarded as the first important anthology of English verse.
(WSJ, 11/15/08, p.W10)
1568 Sep 5, Tommasso Campanella, Italian philosopher and poet, who wrote “City of the Sun," was born.
(HN, 9/5/98)
1580 Jun 10, Luis Camoes (b.1524), Portuguese poet, died. He fought in colonial battles in Morocco and India and lost one eye. He was arrested in a street brawl in Lisbon and left for India. He traveled to Macao and Mozambique after which he published "Os Lusiadas" (The Lusiads, 1572), a poem that glorified Vasco da Gama and the history of Portugal.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lu%C3%ADs_de_Cam%C3%B5es)(SFC, 6/4/99, p.D6)(SSFC, 3/10/02, p.M3)
1591 Aug 24, Robert Herrick, English poet (Gather ye rosebuds) was baptized.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1591 Dec 14, San Juan de la Cruz (b.1542), Spanish poet, died. He is remembered for his treatise “Dark Night of the Soul."
(SSFC, 9/3/06, p.M3)(www.newadvent.org/cathen/08480a.htm)
1593 Aug 23, Fulvio Testi, Italian poet (Pianto d'Italia), was born.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1608 Dec 9, English blind poet and polemical pamphleteer John Milton (1608-1674) was born in London. His work included "Paradise Lost," Paradise Regained," and "Samson Agonistes."
(WUD, '94, p.911)(WSJ, 5/6/97, p.A20)(AP, 12/9/97)
1613 Sep 15, Thomas Overbury (b.1581), Elizabethan poet, died in London. He was murdered by his wife, Florence Maybrick, who used an enema of arsenic. The murder was arranged by Frances Howard, Lady Essex, who felt attacked by Overbury’s poem “A Wife."
(WSJ, 6/24/05, p.W9)(http://search.eb.com/shakespeare/micro/445/8.html)
1616 Apr 23, Miguel de Cervantes (b.1547), Spanish poet and novelist, died in Madrid.
(AP, 4/23/97)
1616 Apr 23, William Shakespeare (b.1564), poet and playwright, died in Stratford-on-Avon, England. In 2004 Stephen Greenblatt authored “Will In the World." In 2006 Colin McGinn authored “Discovering the Meaning Behind the Plays."
(AP, 4/23/97)(WSJ, 9/24/04, p.W7)(SSFC, 12/24/06, p.M1)
1621 Jul 8, Jean La Fontaine, poet and author of Fables, was born.
(HN, 7/8/98)
1627 Luis de Gongora y Argote (b.1561), Spanish poet, died.
(SSFC, 9/3/06, p.M3)(www.spanish-books.net/literature/i_gongora.htm)
1631 Mar 31, John Donne (b.1572), British metaphysical poet, died in London. In 2006 John Stubbs authored “Donne: The Reformed Soul."
(www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/donnebio.htm)(Econ, 9/9/06, p.79)
1631 Aug 9, John Dryden, the 1st official poet laureate of England (1668-1700), was born at Aldwinkle, Northamptonshire.
(HN, 8/9/02)
1633 Mar 1, George Herbert (b.1593), Welsh-born priest and poet, died. In 2013 John Drury authored “Music at Midnight: The Life and Poetry of George Herbert."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Herbert)(Econ, 8/31/13, p.72)
1635 Aug 27, Lope Felix de Vega (72), playwright, poet (Angelica, Arcadia), died.
(MC, 8/27/02)
1637 Aug 6, Ben Johnson (65), English dramatist and poet, died. In 1960 Jonas Barish wrote "Ben Jonson and the Language of Prose Comedy."
(AP, 1/4/98)(WUD, 1994, p.771)(SFC, 4/4/98, p.A24)(MC, 8/6/02)
1644 Poet John Milton published "Areopagitica," an essay in defense of a free press.
(SFC, 1/21/04, p.D2)
1644-1694 Matsuo Basho, Japanese poet. His work include "The Narrow Road to the Deep North" (Oku no Hosomichi). One of his poems celebrated the entrancing cry of the cicada.
(SFC, 11/28/96, p.C16)(WUD, 1994, p.124)(SFC, 7/29/97, p.C3)(Econ, 7/5/14, p.67)
1646 Aug 28, Fulvio Testi (53), Italian poet (Poesie liriche), died.
(MC, 8/28/01)
1647 Apr 1, John Wilmot (d.1680) Second Earl of Rochester, poet (A Satyr Upon Mankinde), scandalous pornographer and bawdy playwright, was born. He married Elizabeth Malet, and carried on an affair with the actress Elizabeth Barry. His friend, playwright George Etherege modeled the character Dorimont after him in "Man of Mode." A 1994 play by Stephen Jeffrey titled "The Libertine," is based on Wilmot’s life.
(WSJ, 3/28/96,p.A-12)(WSJ, 1/14/98, p.A17)
1648 Apr 16, John Luyken, poet, etcher (Duytse Lyre), was born.
(MC, 4/16/02)
1664 Jul 21, Matthew Prior, English poet, was born.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1667 Aug 20, John Milton published Paradise Lost, an epic poem about the fall of Adam and Eve.
(HN, 8/20/98)
1678 Aug 16, Andrew Marvell (b.1621), English poet (Definition of Love), died.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1680 Jul 26, John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, poet, courtier, died.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1683 Jul 3, Edward Young, English poet, dramatist and literary critic, was born. His work included "Night Thoughts."
(HN, 7/3/99)
1687 Apr 16, George Villiers (b.1628), the 2nd Duke of Buckingham, died. The English statesman was a poet, an amateur chemist and one of England’s richest men.
(Econ, 4/3/10, p.88)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Villiers,_2nd_Duke_of_Buckingham)
1695 Apr 13, Jean de la Fontaine (73), French poet (Fables), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_de_La_Fontaine)
1695 Apr 17, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (b.~1648), Mexican nun and poet, died of plague.
(SSFC, 9/3/06, p.M3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sor_Juana)
1700 May 1, John Dryden (b.1631), English poet, playwright (Rival Ladies), died. He had written that repentance was virtue of weak minds and the want of power to sin.
(MC, 5/1/02)(Econ, 7/24/04, p.70)
1712 The poem “The Rape of the Lock" by English poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744) was anonymously published in Lintot’s Miscellany. It was revised, expanded and reissued under Pope’s name in 1714.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_the_Lock)
1719 Jun 17, Joseph Addison (47), English poet, writer, secretary of state, died.
(MC, 6/17/02)
1730 Makhtum Kuli, one of Turkmenistan’s greatest poets, was born. He died in the 1880s.
(www.advantour.com/turkmenistan/culture.htm)
1750 Jul 28, Philippe Fabre d'Eglantine, poet, satirist, politician, was born in France.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1759 Jan 25, Robert Burns (d.1796), poet and song writer, who wrote "Auld Lang Syne" and "Comin’ Thru the Rye," was born in Alloway, Scotland. He took traditional Scottish songs and fiddle tunes, and improved upon existing words, or added verses where they had been lost. "Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind, should auld acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne. For old lang syne, my dear, for old lang syne, we'll take a cup of kindness yet, for old lang syne."
(EMN, 1/96, p.4,6)(HN, 1/25/99)(SFC, 12/30/99, p.A13)(MC, 1/25/02)
1759 Aug 24, Ewald C. von Kleist (44), German poet, died.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1761 James Macpherson (1736-1796), Scottish poet, announced the discovery of an epic on the subject of Fingal (related to the Irish mythological character Fionn mac Cumhaill/Finn McCool) written by Ossian (based on Fionn's son Oisín). He then published poems by Ossian, the blind 3rd century poet, which became very popular and later exposed as a fraud.
(WSJ, 7/26/08, p.W8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Macpherson)
1763 Sep 26, English poet John Byrom (b.1692) died. The words "Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee" made their first appearance in print in "one of the most celebrated and most frequently quoted epigrams," satirizing the disagreements between George Frideric Handel and Giovanni Battista Bononcini, written by John Byrom. A nursery rhyme published in 1805 included the characters Tweedledum and Tweedledee as did Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There" (1871).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweedledum_and_Tweedledee)
1767 Phillis Wheatley's (d.1784) poetry was published for the first time. She traveled to England in 1773, where her book "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral" was hailed as the first published by an African American. In 1776 the African slave-born poet met with George Washington in Cambridge, just before the British evacuated Boston.
(HNPD, 2/20/99)(SSFC, 7/25/04, p.F3)
1770 Aug 24, Thomas Chatterton (b.1752), English poet (Revenge), committed suicide.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1771 Jul 30, Thomas Gray (54), English poet, died. His work included "Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard" (1751).
(MC, 7/30/02)
1772 Oct 21, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (d.1834), English poet and author, was born. His work included "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1797) and "Kubla Khan."
(AP, 9/12/97)(HN, 10/21/00)
1773 Thomas Day, English abolitionist, wrote a poem with his friend John Bicknell called “The Dying Negro."
(Econ, 2/16/13, p.83)
1774 Aug 12, Robert Southey, English poet laureate (1813-1843) and biographer of Nelson, was born.
(HN, 8/12/98)(SC, 8/12/02)
1781 Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), English lexicographer, essayist and poet, authored “Lives of the Poets."
(ON, 11/06, p.9)
1782 Aug 18, Poet and artist William Blake married Catherine Sophia Boucher.
(HN, 8/18/00)
1784 Dec 13, Samuel Johnson (b.1709), English lexicographer, essayist, poet and moralist best known for "The Dictionary of the English Language," died. "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." -- (To which Ambrose Bierce replied, "I beg to submit that it is the first.") Johnson, an antagonist of slavery, left behind an annuity and much of his personal property to his black valet, Francis Barber (b.1735-1801). In 1791 Boswell wrote the celebrated "The Life of Samuel Johnson." In 1955 Walter Jackson Bate (d.1999 at 81) published "The Achievement of Samuel Johnson" and in 1977 the biography "Samuel Johnson." In 2000 Adam Potkay authored "The Passion for Happiness," in which he argued that Samuel Johnson should be included in the Anglo-Scottish Enlightenment along with David Hume, Adam Smith and Edward Gibbon. In 2000 Peter Martin authored "A Life of James Boswell."
(AP, 10/8/97)(WSJ, 6/7/00, p.A24)(WSJ, 11/29/00, p.A24)(ON, 11/06, p.10)(SSFC, 10/28/07, p.M3)
1786 Robert Burns published his first book of poetry in Kilmarnock.
(SFC, 9/30/98, Z1 p.3)
1792 Aug 4, Percy Bysshe Shelley (d.1822), English poet and author who wrote "Prometheus Unbound," was born in Field Place, England. He married Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, author of "Frankenstein." He wrote the poem "Adonais."
(WUD, 1994, p.1314)(HN, 8/4/98)
1793 Jul 13, John Clare, English poet, was born. He was discovered in 1819 and spent his last 30 years in an asylum. In 2003 Jonathan Bate authored "John Clare: A Biography."
(HN, 7/13/01)(Econ, 10/11/03, p.85)
1793 Augustin Ximenez (1726-1817), Marquis of Ximenez, a Frenchman of Spanish origin, wrote a poem with the line “Attaquons dans ses eaux la perfide Albion," which means "Let us attack perfidious Albion in her waters." The poet of perfidy later lectured French soldiers that “Il est beau de perir," which means “it is beautiful to perish."
(SSFC, 1/14/07, p.M4)(http://tinyurl.com/ye6bd7)
1796 Feb 17, James Macpherson (b.1736), Scottish poet, died. In 1761 he had announced the discovery of an epic on the subject of Fingal written by Ossian (based on Fionn's son Oisín). He then published poems by Ossian, the alleged blind 3rd century poet, which became very popular and later exposed as a fraud.
(WSJ, 7/26/08, p.W8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Macpherson)
1796 Jul 21, Robert Burns (37), Scottish poet (Auld Lang Syne), died.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1797 Samuel Taylor Coleridge authored his "Rime of the Ancient Mariner."
(CW, Winter 04, p.17)
1798 Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth published "Lyrical Ballads."
(WSJ, 4/15/99, p.A20)
1799 May 26, Alexander Pushkin, Russian poet (d.1837), was born (OC). His bicentennial in Russia was celebrated Jun 6,1999. [see Jun 6]
(HFA, '96, p.30)(AHD, p.1062)(SFC, 6/3/99, p.C2)
1799 Jun 6, Alexander Pushkin (d.1837), Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature, was born (NC). He was the descendant of an Abyssinian slave of royal blood who was given to Peter the Great as a gift. His works included "Boris Godunov," "Eugene Onegin," and "The Queen of Spades." [see May 26]
(HFA, '96, p.30)(AHD, p.1062)(SFC, 6/3/99, p.C2)(HN, 6/6/99)(WSJ, 7/15/99, p.A16)
1800-1820 The classic love poem "The Tale of Kieu" was written in Vietnam.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.E7)(www.deanza.edu/faculty/swensson/kieu.html)
1801 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet, wrote to Sir Humphrey Davy a letter in which he says: "I seem to sink in upon myself in a ruin, like a Column of Sand, informed and animated only by a Whirl-Blast of the Dessert." Coleridge had become addicted to opium in this year.
(OAPOC-TH, p.71)(WSJ, 4/15/99, p.A20)
1802 Aug 13, Nikolaus Lenau, German poet (Faust, Die Albigenser), was born in Hungary.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1804 Samuel Taylor Coleridge (32), poet, fled to Malta and worked as an assistant to the civilian governor. He returned to England in 1806.
(WSJ, 4/15/99, p.A20)
1805 Walter Scott (1771-1832) of Edinburgh, Scotland, published his first long poem: “The Lay of the Last Minstrel."
(Econ, 7/31/10, p.67)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Scott)
1809 Aug 6, Alfred Lord Tennyson (d.1892), English poet laureate (1850), was born. His work included: "The Charge of the Light Brigade." "Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers."
(HN, 8/6/98)(AP, 10/6/00)
1809 Lord Byron (1788-1824) traveled to Spain, Albania and Greece with John Cam Hobhouse and soon met with Ali Pasha.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Byron)
1809 English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge published his essay “On the Vulgar Errors Respecting Taxes and Taxation."
(Econ, 5/19/12, p.21)
1813-1843 Robert Southey was the poet laureate of England over this period. He was the author of "The Three Bears."
(SFEC, 2/15/98, Z1 p.8)
1817 Aug 24, Aleksei K. Tolstoy, [Kozjma Prutkov], Russian poet, writer, was born.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1817 Percy Bysshe Shelley (25), English romantic poet, authored his sonnet “Ozymandias." It was first published in 1818.
(Econ, 12/21/13, p.125)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozymandias)
1822 Jul 8, Percy Bysshe Shelley (b.1792), English poet, drowned while sailing in Italy at age 29.
(HN, 7/8/01)
1823 Dec 23, The poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" by Clement C. Moore, often called "Twas the night before Christmas," was published in the Troy, N.Y., Sentinel. Recent scholarship reveals the original to have been written by Major Henry Livingston (1748-1828).
(AP, 12/23/97)(AH, 4/01, p.12)(AH, 2/05, p.18)
1823 Lord Byron returned to Greece to provide moral support to insurgents and draw attention to Ottoman massacres of Greek civilians.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Byron)(SFC, 9/7/08, Books p.5)
1824 Apr 19, George Gordon, (6th Baron Byron, b.1788) aka Lord Byron, English poet, died of malaria in Greece at Missolonghi on the gulf of Patras preparing to fight for Greek independence. In 1999 Benita Eisler published the biography "Byron: Child of Passion, Fool of Fame." In 2002 Fiona MacCarthy authored "Byron : Life and Legend." In 2009 Edna O’Brien authored “Byron in Love."
(SFC, 6/9/97, p.D3)(WSJ, 4/26/99, p.A16)(HN, 4/1901)(SSFC, 12/29/02, p.M2)(SSFC, 6/21/09, Books p.J5)
1827 Aug 12, William Blake (b.1757), English visionary engraver and poet, died. In 2001 G.E. Bentley Jr. authored "The Stranger From Paradise: A Biography of William Blake."
(SSFC, 5/27/01, DB p.73)(MC, 8/12/02)
1828 May 12, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (d.1882), English poet and painter, was born. He helped found the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_Gabriel_Rossetti)(WSJ, 7/25/95, p.A-10)
1832 Feb 22, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (b.1749), poet, (Faust, Egmont) died in Weimar, Germany. Goethe had served as minister of mines under Bismarck. He completed "Faust" just before his death: "When Ideas fail, words come in handy." In 1988 Kenneth Weisinger authored "The Classical Facade: A Non-Classical Reading of Goethe's Criticism." In 2006 John Armstrong authored “Love, Life, Goethe: How to Be Happy in an Imperfect World."
(SFEC, 4/26/98, Z1 p.8)(SFC, 8/7/03, p.A19)(SFC, 12/14/04, p.B1)(WSJ, 1/13/07, p.P10)
1832 Sep 21, Sir Walter Scott (b.1771), Scottish poet and novelist, died at Abbotsford near Melrose in the Scottish Borders. His novels included "Ivanhoe" and "Rob Roy." Scott was later credited with inventing the genre of historical fiction. In 2010 Stuart Kelley authored “Scott-land: The Man Who Invented a Nation."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Scott)(SSFC, 3/11/07, p.G3)(Econ, 7/31/10, p.67)
1833 Alexander Pushkin, Russian poet, wrote his poem "The Bronze Horseman" (Myedny Vsadnik).
(SFEC, 6/27/99, p.T11)(WSJ, 8/5/06, p.P12)
1834 Jul 25, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (b.1772), English poet, died. He and his friend William Wordsworth were among the founders of the Romantic Movement in England and later identified, along with Robert Southey, as the Lake School of poets. Coleridge’s work included "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," "Frost at Midnight" and "Kubla Khan." In his later life he authored the "Bibliographia Literaria," a work of literary theory. In 1999 Richard Holmes published "Coleridge: Darker Reflections, 1804-1834," which focused on the poet's later life. His volume "Coleridge: Early Visions" was published in 1989. In 2007 Adam Sisman authored “The Friendship: Wordsworth & Coleridge."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Coleridge-Taylor)(WSJ, 4/15/99, p.A20)(WSJ, 2/20/07, p.D8)
1836 Seitnazar Seyidi (b.1775) and Kurbandurdy Zelili (b.1780), Turkmenistan poets, died. Both are considered to be successors of Makhtum Kuli.
(www.advantour.com/turkmenistan/culture.htm)
1837 Tennyson (1809-1892) wrote his poem “Locksley Hall." It included a vision of a tranquil world “lapt in universal law." It was published as part of a collection in 1842. The poem embodied the pain of lost love and looked forward to a time when the nations of the world would abandon war and form a “parliament of man."
(WSJ, 6/28/06, p.D10)(www.firstscience.com/site/POEMS/tennyson4.asp)
1837 The Mahavamsa ("Great Chronicle"), a historical poem written in the Pali language of the kings of Sri Lanka, was published by George Turnour, an historian and officer of the Ceylon Civil Service. It covers the period from the coming of King Vijaya of Kalinga (ancient Orissa) in 543 BCE to the reign of King Mahasena (334–361).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahavamsa)
1841 Jul 27, Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov (b.1814), poet, novelist, died.
(MC, 7/27/02)
1843 Mar 21, Robert W. Southey (b.1774), British poet laureate and historian, died. In 2006 W. A. Speck authored the biography “Robert Southey."
(WSJ, 8/12/06, p.P8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Southey)
1844 Jul 28, Gerard Manley Hopkins, English poet and Jesuit priest, was born.
(HN, 7/28/01)
1848 The painter-poet Josef Victor von Scheffel published cynical poems with titles as 'Biedermann's Evening socializing' and 'Bummelmaier's Complaint' in the Viennese satirical magazine 'Fliegende Blätter' (Flying Leaves). These names were combined into the pseudonym 'Gottlieb Biedermaier' by Ludwig Eichrodt, who together with Adolf Kussmaul published poems by the schoolmaster Samuel Friedrich Sauter under this name. The spelling finally changed into 'Biedermeier' in 1869 when Eichrodt published 'Biedermeier's Liederlust'.
(www.rupertcavendish.co.uk/Biedermeier/WhatisBiedermeier/whatisbiedermeier.htm)
1849 Jul 22, Emma Lazarus, American poet, was born of Sephardic Jewish parents in NYC. Her poem, "The New Colossus," is inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty.
(HN, 7/22/98)(SFEC, 4/30/00, BR p.2)
1850 Apr 23, William Wordsworth (b.1770), English poet, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wordsworth)
1850 Aug 22, Nikolaus Lenau (48) (pseudonym of Nikolaus Franz Niembsch), Hungarian-born poet and writer, died in Austria.
(MC, 8/22/02)(Internet)
1850 Sep 2, Eugene Field, author, poet and journalist, was born. His work included “Little Boy Blue."
(HN, 9/2/00)(MC, 9/2/01)
1855 Jul 4, One of America's greatest poets -- Walt Whitman -- published the first edition of his famous "Leaves of Grass", a collection of 12 poems. Whitman published the edition himself and had about 1,000 copies printed. He later recalled about the publication, "I don't think one copy was sold, not a copy." The book was published in Philadelphia after the Boston district attorney cited 22 passages as violating a state law against obscenity.
(IB, 12/7/98)(SFC, 3/3/99, Z1 p.9)
1856 Feb 17, Heinrich Heine (b.1797), German journalist and poet, died in Paris. His prose work included a series of travel memoirs that began in 1826 with “The Harz Journey."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Heine)
1858 Longfellow wrote his poem: The Courtship of Miles Standish."
(WSJ, 11/24/04, p.A1)
1859 Aug 28, Leigh Hunt (b.1784), English poet and essayist, died. In 2005 Nicholas Roe authored “Fiery Heart: The first Life of Leigh Hunt." Anthony Holden authored “The Wit in the Dungeon: The Life of Leigh Hunt."
(RTH, 8/28/99)(Econ, 1/29/05, p.80)
1860 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), published his poem “Paul Revere’s Ride," (The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Wadsworth_Longfellow)(WSJ, 10/31/00, p.A24)
1861 Mar 10, Taras Shevchenko (b.1814), Ukraine poet and artist died. He was a member of the Sts Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood and an academician of the Imperial Academy of Arts.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taras_Shevchenko)(AP, 3/9/14)
1861 Sir Francis Turner Palgrave (1824-1897) edited “The Golden Treasury," a 4-volume anthology of the best songs and lyrical poems in the English language.
(WSJ, 1/20/07, p.P11)(WSJ, 11/15/08, p.W10)
1863 Aug 14, Ernest L. Thayer, author of the poem "Casey at the Bat," was born.
(HN, 8/14/98)
1865 Jun 13, William Butler Yeats (d.1939), Irish poet and playwright, was born to an Anglo-Irish family in a Dublin suburb. He is best remembered for his poems "Byzantium" and "Easter 1916." He won the Nobel Prize in 1923. The first volume of his autobiography was "Reveries Over Childhood and Youth" (1915). Richard Ellman published a biography in 1948. The book "W.B. Yeats: A Life, Vol. 1: The Apprentice Mage 1865-1914," by R.F. Foster covered this period of Yeats’ life. "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" is his best known poem. "Too long a sacrifice / Can make a stone of the heart. / O when may it suffice?"
(V.D.-H.K.p.365)(WSJ, 4/2397, p.A1)(AP, 4/29/98)(HN, 6/13/98)(SFEC, 8/8/99, p.T6)(MC, 6/13/02)
1865 Bret Harte edited the 1st collection of California poetry from newspaper clippings of poems compiled by Mary Tingley of San Francisco.
(SSFC, 1/4/04, p.M1)
1865-1914 The book "W.B. Yeats: A Life, Vol. 1: The Apprentice Mage," by R.F. Foster covered this period of Yeats’ life. "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" is his best known poem.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, BR p.6)
1865-1939 William Butler Yeats, Irish poet and playwright. The first volume of his autobiography was "Reveries Over Childhood and Youth" (1915). Richard Ellman published a biography in 1948. "Too long a sacrifice / Can make a stone of the heart. / O when may it suffice?"
(V.D.-H.K.p.365)(WSJ, 4/2397, p.A1)(AP, 4/29/98)
1867 Aug 31, [Pierre-]Charles Baudelaire (46), French poet (Journaux Intimes), died.
(MC, 8/31/01)
1887 Sep 7, Dame Edith Sitwell (d.1964), English poet, was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Sitwell)
1868 Aug 23, Edgar Lee Masters (d.1950), poet, novelist, was born in Garnett, Kansas.
(http://www.nybooks.com/articles/3088)
1869 Jul 8, William Vaughan Moody, poet and playwright (The Great Divide), was born.
(HN, 7/8/01)
1871 Jul 3, William Henry Davies, Welsh poet, was born.
(HN, 7/3/01)
1873 Jan 7, Charles Peguy (d.1914), French poet and writer, was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_P%C3%A9guy)
1873 Jul 10, French poet Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) wounded Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) with a pistol.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Rimbaud)
1876 Jun 10, Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) embarked for the Dutch East Indies, or modern-day Indonesia. He arrived on July 22 and on August 15 he deserted, leaving his possessions to be sold for the benefit of the local orphanage. He reappeared only on December 31, 1876, when he returned to his mother in Charleville-Mezieres in northern France. Rimbaud, who wrote the anti-militarist "The Sleeper in the Valley," had embarked on the journey after signing up for six years in the Dutch colonial army. In 2011 American writer Jamie James authored "Rimbaud in Java: The Lost Voyage."
(AP, 1/28/12)
1878 Jan 8, [NS date] Russian poet Nikolay Nekrasov (b.1821) died. He is credited with introducing into Russian poetry ternary meters and the technique of dramatic monologue.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolay_Nekrasov)
1882 Mar 24, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (b.1807), US poet (Song of Hiawatha), died. He is the sole American honored with a bust in the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey. In 2000 J.D. McClatchy edited "Longfellow: Poems and Other Writings."
(WSJ, 10/31/00, p.A24)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Wadsworth_Longfellow)
1886 May 15, Poet Emily Dickinson (b.1830) died in Amherst, Mass., where she had lived in seclusion for the previous 24 years. In 2001 Alfred Habegger authored her biography: "My Wars Are laid Away in Books." In 2008 Brenda Wineapple authored “White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson & Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911). In 2010 Lyndall Gordon authored “Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and her Family Feuds," in which he presents evidence that Dickinson suffered from congenital epilepsy.
(AP, 5/15/97)(HN, 5/15/01)(WSJ, 11/2/01, p.W11)(Econ, 7/26/08, p.96)
1886 “Illuminations," the final work of Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891), was published in France. By this time he had given up on poetry to become a trader in Africa.
(Econ, 6/25/11, p.98)
1887 Aug 3, Rupert Brooke (d.1915), English poet who mainly wrote about World War I, was born: "Cities, like cats, will reveal themselves at night."
(AP, 2/20/98)(HN, 8/3/98)
1878 Jun 12, William Cullen Bryant (b.1794), American poet and journalist, died. He wrote the bulk of his poem “Thanatopsis" while still a teenager in Massachusetts. In 2008 Gilbert H. Muller authored “William Cullen Bryant: Author of America."
(WSJ, 6/20/08, p.W3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cullen_Bryant)
1887 Mar 31, John Godfrey Saxe (b.1816), American poet, died. In 1969 he was quoted saying: “Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made." His poems included “The Blind Men and the Elephant" (1862).
(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Godfrey_Saxe)
1889 Jun 8, Gerard Manley Hopkins (54), poet, died.
(MC, 6/8/02)
1889 Jun 15, Mihai Eminescu, born in 1850 as Mihail Eminovici, died in Bucharest. He was a Romantic poet, novelist and journalist, and often regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihai_Eminescu)
1889 Dec, The poem Clancy of the Overflow by Banjo Paterson 1st appeared in the Christmas edition of Australia’s Bulletin magazine.
(NG, 8/04, p.10)
1891 Nov 10, J.N. Arthur Rimbaud (b.1854), French poet and arms merchant (Saison en Enfer), died in Marseille after doctors amputated his leg. In 1961 Enid Starkie authored a biography. In 2000 Graham Robb authored "Rimbaud." Rimbaud stopped writing poetry at age 21 and ended his last years in Africa as an arms dealer. In 2008 Edmund White authored “Rimbaud: The Double Life of a Rebel."
(WUD, 1994 p.1234)(HN, 10/20/00)(SFC, 2/12/02, p.D3)(Econ, 10/11/08, p.115)
1893 Aug 22, Dorothy Parker (d.1967), poet, satirist, screenwriter and founding member of the Algonquin Round Table, was born in West Bend, N.J. "Authors and actors and artists and such / Never know nothing, and never know much."
(AP, 8/22/97)(HN, 8/22/02)
1893 Jul 19, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Russian poet, was born.
(HN, 7/19/01)
1894 Jul 18, Charles Marie Leconte de Lisle (born 1818), French poet, died.
(MC, 7/18/02)(WUD, 1994, p.817)
1894 French poet Pierre Louys (1870-1925) authored “The Songs of Bilitis" (1894) a book of lesbian love poetry.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Songs_of_Bilitis)
1895 Jul 24, Robert Graves (d.1985), British poet and novelist (Goodbye to All That, I Claudius), was born. "There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money either."
(AP, 4/8/99)(HN, 7/24/02)(Econ, 8/17/13, p.71)
1895 Banjo Paterson wrote his poem Waltzing Matilda while on holiday in Queensland. The name referred to a slang term for drifting around the outback with a bedroll (your matilda) slung over the shoulder. Christina Macpherson adopted the poem to the Scottish tune “Thou Bonnie Wood o’ Craigielea."
(NG, 8/04, p.24)
1896 Irish poet W.B. Yeats met Irish playwright John Millington Synge in Paris and suggested Synge go and live on the Aran Islands. Synge took his advice and spent years there developing a whole new language for his plays. Synge also spent time on Great Blasket. In 2012 Robert Kanigel authored “On an Irish Island."
(SSFC, 3/11/12, p.F5)
1898 Jul 22, Stephen Vincent Benet, poet and short-story writer, author of John Brown's Body, was born.
(HN, 7/22/98)
1898 Aug 24, Malcolm Cowley, poet and translator, literary critic and social historian was born. He wrote "The Dream of the Golden Mountains."
(HN, 8/24/98)
1899 Jul 21, Poet Hart Crane was born in Garrettsville, Ohio.
(AP, 7/21/99)
1899 Aug 24, Jorge Luis Borges (d.1986), Argentine poet and philosophical essayist, was born in Buenos Aires.
(WUD, 1994, p.171)(WSJ, 9/21/98, p.A26)(AP, 8/24/99)
1899 Rudyard Kipling authored his poem “The White Man’s Burden."
(SSFC, 5/8/05, p.B1)
1902 Feb 1, Langston Hughes, African-American poet, was born in Joplin, Mo. His books included “Way Down South."
(HN, 2/1/99)(SSFC, 7/25/04, p.F3)
1902 Sep 29, William McGonagall (b~1825), poet, died in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was mocked by literary critics and had food thrown at him during public readings. He died penniless and was buried in an unmarked grave. Critics later awarded him the "world's worst" label because of the crashing lack of subtlety in terms of rhyme, imagery, vocabulary or repetition. His most famous poem is about the Tay Bridge disaster of 1879, in which 75 people died. In 2008 35 broadsheets of his original poems were auctioned for $13,200.
(AFP, 5/16/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McGonagall)(WSJ, 5/17/08, p.A1)
1904 Jul 12, Pablo Neruda (d.1973), Chilean poet and political activist (Residence on Earth-Nobel 1971), was born as Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto in Parral, Chile.
(HN, 7/12/01)(SFC, 7/15/04, p.E11)
1905 Jul 29, Stanley Kunitz, poet, was born.
(HN, 7/29/01)
1906 Feb 9, Poet Paul Laurence Dunbar (33), son of former slaves, died of TB in his hometown of Dayton, Ohio.
(AH, 2/06, p.15)
1906 Aug 28, John Betjeman (d.1984), poet laureate of England (1972-1984), was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Betjeman)
1907 Sep, The Cosmopolitan magazine published the epic poem “A Wine of Wizardry" by George Sterling (1869-1926). The poem and accompanying essay by Ambrose Bierce sparked critical reaction across the continent. Sterling, Jack London’s best friend, was the scion of a Long Island whaling family and worked in an East Bay real estate firm.
(SSFC, 12/23/07, p.M4)
1908 May 25, Theodore Roethke (d.1963), American poet, was born in Saginaw, Mich.
(AP, 5/25/08)(MT, Summer 01, p.3)
1909 Feb 20, F.T. Marinetti (1876-1944), Italian poet, published the 1st Futurist Manifesto in the Paris newspaper Le Figaro. It included statements such as “We want to glorify war - the only cure for the world…" and We intend to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and fearlessness."
(www.unknown.nu/futurism/)(SFEC, 1/3/99, DB p.27)(WSJ, 10/23/08, p.A15)(Econ, 2/22/14, p.71)
1911 Jun 30, Czeslaw Milosz (d.2004), Polish poet and critic and Nobel winner, was born in Lithuania. In 2001 his Polish "Milosz’s ABC’s" was published in English.
(SFC, 3/21/01, p.C1)(HN, 6/30/01)
1912 Max Beerbohm (1872-1956), English essayist, published “A Christmas Garland," a collection of 17 poetic parodies with a Christmas theme.
(www.amazon.com/Christmas-Garland-Max-Beerbohm/dp/0300058098)
1912 Harriet Monroe, former Chicago Tribune art critic, founded the monthly Poetry Magazine. In 2002 Ruth Lilly (87), great-grandchild of Eli Lilly, gave the magazine a $100 million endowment.
(SFC, 11/19/02, p.A3)
1913 Feb 13, Joaquin Miller (b.1837), known as the "poet of the Sierras," died in Oakland, Ca. Miller had sponsored California’s 1st Arbor Day. His work included "Utopia" (1880) and “Life amongst the Modocs : unwritten history" (1873), an autobiographical novel first published in London. Miller was born as Cincinnatus Hiner Miller near Liberty, Indiana. His secret "California Diary" was unearthed 25 years after his death. In 1919 Oakland purchased his property and in 1928 turned it into a park combined with adjacent undeveloped tracts.
(http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007936641)(SFEM, 4/2/00, p.48)(SSFC, 1/14/07, p.B3)(SSFC, 6/16/13, DB p.17)
1914 Sep 5, Charles Peguy (d.1914), French poet and writer, died. "It is impossible to write ancient history because we lack source materials, and impossible to write modern history because we have far too many."
(AP, 7/28/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_P%C3%A9guy)
1915 Ina Coolbrith (1841-1928), born as Josephine Donna Smith, became California’s first poet laureate.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ina_Coolbrith)
1915 Hans Leip, in training for the Prussian Guard, authored the poem “Song of a Young Sentry." It reflected his recent meetings with two women named Lili and Marlene. In 1938 Norbert Schultze of Berlin put it to music. The composition was then recorded by cabaret chanteuse Lale Anderson and became hugely as the song “Lili Marlene." In 2008 Liel Leibovitz and Matthew Miller authored “Lili Marlene: The Soldier’s Song of World War II."
(WSJ, 11/8/08, p.W8)
1915-1939 The book "W.B. Yeats: A Life, Vol. 2: The Arch Poet," by R.F. Foster covered this period of Yeats’ life.
(WSJ, 11/13/03, p.D8)
1916 Feb 6, Ruben Dario (b.1867), Nicaraguan poet, died. Dario, one of Nicaragua's best-known poets, is considered the father of the Modernismo movement.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9028777/Ruben-Dario)
1916 Jul 4, Poet Alan Seeger died in action at Befloy-en-Santerre. He had enlisted into the French Foreign Legion at the outset of WW I. He wrote the lines: I have a rendezvous with death / At some disputed barricade..."
(SFEC, 3/16/97, Z1 p.2)
1917 Apr 9, Edward Thomas (b.1878), British writer and poet, was killed in action during the Battle of Arras. His travel books included “The Icknield Way." In 2012 Matthew Hollis authored “Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas."
(Economist, 9/22/12, p.94)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Thomas_%28poet%29)
1917 TS Eliot (1888-1965) authored his poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
(www.bartleby.com/198/1.html)
1917 Harriet Monroe and Alice Corbin Henderson edited “The New Poetry," an anthology of contemporary poets.
(WSJ, 11/15/08, p.W10)
1918 Jan 28, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae (b.1872), Canadian MD and author of the poem Flanders Field (1915), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCrae)
1918 Apr 1, Isaac Rosenberg (b.1890), British WWI war poet, died near Arras, France, during Ludendorff’s big spring offensive. In 2008 Jean Moorcroft Wilson authored “Isaac Rosenberg: The Making of a Great War Poet."
(WSJ, 4/3/09, p.W6)
1918 Jul 30, Poet Joyce Kilmer (b.1886), a sergeant in the 165th U.S. Infantry Regiment, was killed during the Second Battle of the Marne in World War I. Kilmer is perhaps best remembered for his poem "Trees."
(AP, 7/30/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyce_Kilmer)
1920 Aug 16, Charles Bukowski, poet and novelist, was born.
(HN, 8/16/00)
1921 Ezra Pound edited “The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot.
(Econ, 12/4/04, p.85)
1922 Jul 17, Donald Davie, English poet and literary critic, was born.
(HN, 7/17/01)
1922 Feb, Ernest Hemingway met poet Ezra Pound in a Paris bookstore. Pound was one of the founders of a school of poetry called Imagism.
(ON, 7/05, p.9)
1922 Henry Lawson (b.1867), Australian poet, died.
(NG, 8/04, p.1)
1924 May 12, Russian-American poet Alexander Esenin-Volpin was born in Leningrad. A notable dissident, political prisoner and a leader of the Soviet human rights movement, he spent total of fourteen years incarcerated and repressed by the Soviet authorities in prisons, psikhushkas and exile.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Esenin-Volpin)
1925 Jul 17, Laszlo Nagy, Hungarian poet, was born.
(HN, 7/17/01)
1926 Nov 17, George Sterling (d.1926), California poet and critic, committed suicide by swallowed cyanide in the locker room of the Bohemian Club on Taylor Street in SF. His wife had committed suicide by poison in 1918.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Sterling)(SFC, 11/16/01, WB p.G4)
1926 California poet Lew Welch was born.
(SFC, 12/9/03, p.D1)
1927 Jul 28, John Ashbery, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet (Self-Portrait in a Convict's Mirror), was born.
(HN, 7/28/01)
1928 Apr 4, Maya Angelou (d.2014), American poet, was born.
(HN, 4/4/98)(Econ, 6/7/14, p.98)
1928 Philip Levine, poet, was born in Detroit, Mich. He spent a good portion of his life teaching poetry in Fresno, Ca.
(SFC, 10/19/04, p.E1)
1929 Jul 15, Hugo Von Hofmannsthal, playwright, poet, died.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1930 Mar 26, Gregory Corso, beat poet (Happy Birthday of Death, Long Live Man), was born. He discovered literature in prison.
(HN, 3/26/01)(SS, 3/26/02)
1930 Aug 16, Ted Hughes, English poet laureate, was born.
(HN, 8/16/00)
1931 Nov 19, Xu Zhimo (34), Chinese poet, was killed in a plane crash while flying from Nanjing to Beijing. He left behind four collections of verse and several volumes of translations from various languages. His poem “On Leaving Cambridge" made famous a willow tree on the ground’s of King’s College.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xu_Zhimo)(Econ, 12/18/10, p.114)
1932 Apr 27, American poet Hart Crane (b.1899) drowned after jumping from a steamer while en route to New York. In 1967 R.W.B. Lewis (d. 2002) authored "The Poetry of Hart Crane."
(AP, 4/27/97)(SFC, 6/17/02, p.B5)
1933 Apr 29, Constantine Cavafy (b.1863), Greek poet, died in Alexandria, Egypt. The 1996 Greek film "Cavafy" was a profile of the Greek homosexual poet, and a winner of Greece’s National Film Award for best feature of the year. Cavafy spent 30 years working as a clerk in the Ministry of Irrigation. In 2006 “The Collected Poems of C.P. Cavafy," translated by Aliki Barstone, was published.
(SFC, 6/18/98, p.E4)(SSFC, 6/24/01, DB p.64)(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/kafavis.htm)
1933 Jul 18, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Russian poet, was born in Zima, Russia.
(HN, 7/18/01)(MC, 7/18/02)
1934 Apr 11, Mark Strand (b.1934), Canadian poet, was born. He became the fourth national poet laureate in 1990, and received dozens of angry letters when he announced that he would not write any poems for national public figures, even if the president's dog died. "Poetry is about slowing down. You sit and you read something, you read it again, and it reveals a little bit more, and things come to light you never could have predicted."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Strand)
1934 Sep 9, Sonia Sanchez, poet, was born in Birmingham, Alabama.
(HN, 9/9/00)
1935 Apr 6, Edwin Arlington Robinson (b.1869), US poet, died. In 2006 Scott Donaldson authored “Edwin Arlington Robinson: A Poet’s Life."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Arlington_Robinson)(WSJ, 1/27/07, p.P9)
1935 Sep 10, Mary Oliver, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, was born in maple Heights, Ohio.
(HN, 9/10/00)
1935 Nov 30, Fernando Pessoa (b.1888), Portuguese poet, died.
(Econ, 10/04/08, p.92)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Pessoa)
1936 Jun 14, G.K. Chesterton (b.1874), English poet-essayist, died at his home in Beaconsfield, England. His poems included “The Secret People" (1915). As president of the Distributist League, he promoted the idea that private property should be divided into smallest possible freeholds and then distributed throughout society.
(Econ, 4/2/05, p.51)(www.online-literature.com/chesterton/)
1936 Aug 16, Spanish poet Garcia Lorca was arrested in Granada. He disappeared shortly thereafter. The 1997 film "The Disappearance of Garcia Lorca" was an attempt to depict the circumstances of his disappearance. Lorca was the author of "Gypsy Ballads," "Blood Wedding" and "The Poet." Spanish poet Fredico Garcia Lorca was shot by Franco's troops after being forced to dig his own grave.
(LVRJ, 11/1/97, p.12B)(HN, 8/19/98)(MT, Spg. ‘99, p.2)
1936 A poetry movement called “the Activists" began in the SF Bay Area. It was led by Lawrence Hart (1900-1996). The movement faded with the rise of the Beat Poets in the 1950s.
(SSFC, 9/4/05, p.F3)
1938 Mar 1, Gabriele d’Annunzio, Italian poet, writer and political leader, died. In 2013 Lucy Hughes-Hallett authored “The Pike: Gabriele d’Annunzio: Poet Seducer and Preacher of War."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriele_d%27Annunzio)
1938 Dec 27, Osip Mandelstam (b.1891), Russian poet born in Poland to Jewish parents, died while in transit to a labor camp. In 1998 Emma Gerstein authored “Moscow Memoirs: Memories of Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam and Literary Russia Under Stalin." An English translation by John Crowfoot became available in 2004.
(SSFC, 9/11/04, p.M3)(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk)
1938 Cesar Vallejo (b.1892), Peruvian poet, died. His 1918 book "The Black Heralds" was translated into English in 2003 by Rebecca Seiferle.
(SSFC, 12/28/03, p.M4)
1939 Jul 27, Michael Longley, Irish poet, was born.
(HN, 7/27/01)
1939 W.H. Auden (1907-1973), Anglo-American poet, authored his poem “Epitaph on a Tyrant."
(Econ, 9/4/10, p.91)
1940 Sep 26, W.H. Davies (b.1871), a Welsh poet, died in England. He had lived the life of a hobo in America and authored “Autobiography of a Supertramp" (1908).
(Econ, 8/31/13, p.14)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._H._Davies)
1941 Feb 5, Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson (b.1864), Australian poet and journalist, died. He is best known for his song “Waltzing Matilda."
(www.whatsthenumber.com/oz/voice/writers/paterson0.htm)(NG, 8/04, p.29)
1941 Aug 31, Marina Tsvetaeva (b.1892), a Russian and Soviet poet and writer, died. She wrote six plays in verse and narrative poems, including The Tsar Maiden (1920), and her epic about the Civil War, The Swans' Encampment, which glorified those who fought against the communists.
(Econ, 3/6/10, p.103)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Tsvetaeva)
1944 Jun, Frank Thompson (23), British soldier and poet, was captured and executed in Bulgaria. In 2012 Peter Conradi authored “A Very English Hero: The Making of Frank Thompson."
(Economist, 9/8/12, p.82)
1944 Violet Kazue de Cristoforo (1917-2007), California poet, authored “Poetic Reflections of the Tule Lake Internment Camp." She was interned from 1942-1946.
(SFC, 10/9/07, p.B5)
1944 Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac met on the campus of Columbia Univ. in NYC. In 2010 Bill Morgan and David Stanford published the edited letters of Ginsberg and Kerouac. Bill Morgan authored “The Typewriter Is Holy: The Complete, Uncensored History of the Beat Generation."
(SSFC, 7/18/10, p.F12)
1945 Jul 20, Paul Valery (b.1871), French poet (Le cimetiere Marin, Mon Faust), died at age 73. He was buried in his home town of Sete.
(SSFC, 6/17/01, p.T10)(MC, 7/20/02)
1945 Adam Zagajewski, poet, was born in Poland. In 1988 he began teaching at the Univ. of Houston as well as in Krakow. His books included “A Defense of Ardor," a collection of essays translated to English in 2004.
(SSFC, 11/28/04, p.E2)
1946 Jul 27, Gertrude Stein (72), US-French author, poet (Ida, Tender Buttons), died in France. Her work included the murder mystery "Blood on the Dining-Room Floor" and “The Biography of Alice B. Toklas" (1933). She once said of Oakland, Ca.: "There is no there there." Painter Francis Rose carved the headstone on her grave at the Pere Lachaise cemetery. A biography of Stein by Linda Wagner-Martin was published in 1996 titled "Favored Strangers." In 2007 Janet Malcolm authored “Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Stein)(SFC, 6/9/96, Z1 p.5)(WSJ, 10/5/99, p.A24)(WSJ, 9/25/07, p.D6)
1947 Paula von Preradovic, Austrian poet, wrote a new Austrian anthem after the old one was pinched by the Germans.
(Econ, 11/24/07, SR p.3)
1948 Jun 4, Hugh Kenner (d.2003 at 80) met for the 1st time with Ezra Pound in a Washington-area mental facility. Pound became his mentor and directed him in a number of literary efforts. In 1951 Kenner turned his thesis into the book: "The Poetry of Ezra Pound." In 1971 Kenner authored "The Pound Era."
(SSFC, 11/30/03, p.A31)
1949 Zang Kejia (d.2004 at 99), poet, edited the "Selected Poems of Chairman Mao."
(SFC, 2/7/04, p.A20)
1950 Feb 20, Dylan Thomas arrived in NYC for his 1st US poetry reading tour.
(www.swansea.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=2488&articleaction=print)
1952 Aug 28, Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, was born.
(HN, 8/28/00)
1953 Nov 9, Welsh author-poet Dylan Thomas died in New York at age 39 during his poetry-reading blitz of the US. In 1955 John Malcolm Brinnin (d.1998 at 81), the man who brought Thomas to America, published "Dylan Thomas in America."
(SFEC, 5/25/97, p.T5)(AP, 11/9/97)(SFC, 6/29/98, p.A19)
1953 Czeslaw Milosz, émigré Polish poet, published “The Captive Mind," in which he unpicked the mangling effects of communist thought.
(Econ, 8/1/09, p.76)
1954 San Francisco State Prof. Ruth Witt-Diamant founded a Poetry Center at SF State.
(SFC, 2/19/04, p.E1)
1954 Strickland Gillilan (b.1869), American poet, died. His poems included "The Reading Mother." "...Richer than I your can never be / I had a mother who read to me."
(SSFC, 4/25/04, p.M6)
1955 Oct 7, Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) his 3,600-word "Howl" at the Six Gallery at 3119 Fillmore. Kenneth Rexroth was the host. Jack Kerouac and Lawrence Ferlinghetti were in the audience. Other readers included Philip Lamantia, Philip Whalen, Michael McClure and Gary Snyder. The Gallery was run as a co-op by poet Robert Duncan, his lover Jess (Burgess Collins) and another artist. In 2004 Jonah Raskin authored "American Scream: Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" and the Making of the Beat Generation." In 2006 Jason Shinder edited “The Poem That Changed America."
(SFEC, 8/29/99, p.D7)(SFC, 10/28/00, p.D1)(SSFC, 4/4/04, p.M2)(SSFC, 4/16/06, p.M3)
1956 Sep 21, Anastasio Somoza Garcia (b.1896), Nicaraguan dictator, was shot by poet Rigoberto Lopez Perez. He died on Sep 29 after being sent to a Panama Canal Zone hospital.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastasio_Somoza_Garc%C3%ADa)
1956 Lawrence Ferlinghetti published a 1st edition of "Howl" by Allen Ginsberg. The 1st 1000 copies were printed in Europe and passed Customs without incident.
(www.citylights.com/His/CLhowlhist.html)
1957 Mar 25, US Police and customs agents seized copies of “Howl" by Allen Ginsberg. In May Ferlinghetti was arrested along with City Lights manager Shigeyoshi Murao (d.1999) on obscenity charges. The defending attorneys were J.W. Ehrlich and Albert Bendich (1929-2015). By the Fall Judge Clayton Horn found the poem of "redeeming social importance." Shig later managed City Lights and authored the occasional "Shig's Review." In 2006 Bill Morgan and Nancy J. Peters edited “Howl On Trial: The Battle for Free Expression."
(SFEC, 11/28/99, BR p.10)(www.citylights.com/His/CLhowlhist.html)(SSFC, 11/5/06, p.M3)(SFC, 1/14/15, p.D3)
1957 Ted Hughes (1930-1998), British poet, published his first book of poetry "Hawk in the Rain." It re-defined the shape of post-war English poetry.
(SFC, 10/30/98, p.A17)(Econ, 11/8/03, p.83)
1958 Jun 28, Alfred Noyes (77), British poet, essayist (Robin Hood, The Highwayman), died.
(MC, 6/28/02)
1958 In China Ai Qing (1910-1996), a poet, was denounced as a rightist and spent the next 18 years in hard labor in the Xinjiang region. His son Ai Weiwei (b.1957), later became renowned as an artist and political activist.
(Econ, 5/5/12, p.82)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ai_Qing)
1960 Jan, The San Francisco Examiner (a Hearst newspaper) offered Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982) a job writing a weekly column. He accepted and by May 1961 the column had proved popular enough that he was asked to do two and sometimes even three per week. Rexroth wrote some 700 columns for the Examiner until June 1967, when he was fired after writing a particularly scathing article about the American police.
(www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/sfe/)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Rexroth)
1960 Alexis Saint-Leger (1887-1975), Guadeloupe-born French poet and diplomat, won the Nobel Prize for literature. He wrote under the pseudonym Saint John Perse.
(http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Leger,+Alexis+Saint-Leger)
1961 Sep, Yevgeny Yevtushenko (b.1933), Russian poet, published his poem “Babi Yar" at the height of the Khrushchev thaw. It recalled the 1941 massacre of over 33,000 Jews at ravine in Kiev, Ukraine.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babi_Yar)
1962 Sep 3, e[dward] e cummings (ee cummings), US poet (Tulips & Chimneys), died at 67.
(MC, 9/3/01)
1962 Alan Dugan (1923-2003) won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for his book "Poems." At the time Dugan worked in a factory where he made plastic vaginas used to demonstrate diaphragm insertion.
(SSFC, 9/7/03, p.A29)
1963 Jan 29, Poet Robert Frost (b.1874) died in Boston at age 88. In 1999 Jay Parini published "Robert Frost: A Life." Lawrance Thompson authored a 3-volume biography (1966-1976).
(AP, 1/29/98)(SFEC, 4/18/99, BR p.3)
1963 Feb 11, Sylvia Plath (30), American writer, committed suicide by gas in London after Ted Hughes left her for another woman. Her autobiographical novel "The Bell Jar" was published this year. She had been married to English poet Ted Hughes (d.1998), who in 1998 published a 198 page book of verse "Birthday Letters" based on their relationship. The woman for whom Hughes left Plath committed suicide 5 years later. Plath’s 1981 "Collected Poems" won a Pulitzer Prize. The Plath book of poems "Ariel" was published after her death. In 2000 her uncensored diaries: "The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath," were edited by Karen V. Kukil. Carl Rollyson authored “American Isis: The Life and Art of Sylvia Plath" (2013). Andrew Wilson authored “Mad Girl’s Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted" (2013).
(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A10)(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.C5)(SFEC, 3/26/00, p.A25)(SFEC, 11/12/00, BR p.1)(SSFC, 2/17/13, p.F5)(Econ, 3/9/13, p.84)
1963 Mar 4, William Carlos Williams (b.1883), American physician and poet, died in Rutherford, NJ. In 2011 Herbert Leibowitz authored “Something Urgent I Have to Say to You": The Life and Works of William Carlos Williams.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Carlos_Williams)(Econ, 12/31/11, p.68)
1963 Sep 3, Louis MacNeice (b.1907), northern Irish poet, died. His name was often subsumed under the collective name of Macspaunday, which referred to the generation of politically-committed 1930s poets: MacNeice, Stephen Spender, W.H. Auden and C. Day-Lewis. MacNeice’s collected poems were published in 2007.
(Econ, 9/29/07, p.89)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_MacNeice)
1963 Giorgos Seferis (1900-1971), Turkish-born Greek poet, won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Seferis was the pen name of Georgios Seferiades
(AP, 10/8/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgos_Seferis)
1963 Nazim Hikmet (b.1902), Salonika-born Turkish poet, died in Moscow.
(www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=291)
1964 Dec 9, Dame Edith Sitwell (d.1964), English poet, died. "Good taste is the worst vice ever invented." A book of her collected poems was published in 2006. In 2011 Richard Greene authored “Edith Sitwell: Avant Garde Poet, English Genius."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Sitwell)(WSJ, 7/22/06, p.P10)(Econ, 2/19/11, p.94)
1964 George Hitchcock (1914-2010), poet and playwright, founded the Kayak poetry magazine in San Francisco. He continued publishing it until 1984 after 64 issues.
(SSFC, 9/5/10, p.C9)
1965 Jan 4, T.S. Eliot, English poet, died in London at age 76. In 1995 Anthony Julius published "T.S. Eliot, Anti-Semitism and Literary Form." Julius was the lawyer who won a divorce settlement of $23 million for Princess Diana in 1996. "Little Gidding" is an Eliot work. In 2015 Robert Crawford authored “Young Eliot: From St. Louis to The Waste Land."
(SFC, 7/17/96, p.E6)(NH, 8/96, p.57)(AP, 1/4/98)(Econ., 2/14/15, p.74
1966 Mar 5, Anna Akhmatova, Russian poet, died in Leningrad. She was born in 1889 as Anna Gorenko near Odessa, Ukraine. In 2005 Elaine Feinstein authored “Anna of All the Russias: A Life of Anna Akhmatova.
(www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Anna_Akhmatova)
1966 Lenore Kandel (1932-2009), NYC-born SF poet, published “The Love Book." It was deemed pornographic and SF police raided the Psychedelic Shop on Haight Street where it was sold. Kandel, born of Russian and Mongol parents, was portrayed as Romana Swartz in Jack Kerouac’s 1962 novel “Big Sur."
(SFC, 10/22/09, p.D6)
1967 May 12, English poet laureate John Masefield died.
(AP, 5/12/07)
1967 May 22, J. Langston Hughes (b.1902), poet laureate, US author (Tambourines to Glory), died of complications following surgery at NY Polyclinic Hospital.
(SSFC, 7/25/04, p.F3)
1967 Jun 7, Author-critic Dorothy Parker (b.1893), famed for her caustic wit, died in NYC. The 1994 film "Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle" starred Jennifer Jason Leigh as the poet Dorothy Parker. It covered 25 years of Parker's life. She left most of her estate to Martin Luther King, Jr.
(AP, 6/7/97)(SFEC, 8/23/98, DB p.43)(SFEC, 9/19/99, Z1 p.3)
1967 Jul 20, Pablo Neruda received the 1st Viareggio-Versile prize.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1967 Jul 22, Carl Sandburg (89), historian and poet (Abraham Lincoln: Prairie Years), died in North Carolina.
(AP, 7/22/07)
1967 Aug 31, Ilya G. Ehrenburg (76), Russian poet and propagandist ("Russians, get your German!"), died.
(MC, 8/31/01)
1967 Sep 1, Siegfried Sassoon (b.1886), WW I English soldier poet, died. His books included “Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man" (1928). In 2005 Max Egremont authored the biography: “Siegfried Sassoon."
(WSJ, 12/1/05, p.D9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_Sassoon)
1968 Aug 13, In Greece there was an assassination attempt against Col. George Papadopoulos (1919-1999), the right-wing military leader, organized by Alexandros Panagoulis (1939-1976), Greek politician and poet.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandros_Panagoulis)
1969 May 4, F. Osbert S. Sitwell (b.1892), English poet (Who Killed Cock Robin?), died at castle Montegufoni near Florence, Italy.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osbert_Sitwell)
1970 Jan 10, Charles Olson (b.1910), American poet, died in NYC. Volume Three of his Maximus Poems appeared posthumously in 1975.
(SFC, 6/12/06, p.D8)(www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/olson/life.htm)
1970 Dec 31, Lorine Niedecker (b.1903), died. She was a Wisconsin-born objectivist-influenced poet.
(SFEC, 4/23/00, BR p.6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorine_Niedecker)
1971 May 23, In California poet Lou Welch (b.1926) walked away from Gary Snider’s residence in the Sierra foothills and was never seen again.
(SFC, 8/15/97, p.A21)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lew_Welch)
1971 Sep 20, George Seferis (b.1900), Nobel Prize-winning (1963) Greek poet, died. In 2003 Roderick Beaton authored "George Seferis - Waiting for the Angel: A Biography."
(HN, 3/13/01)(Econ, 11/22/03, p.83)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgos_Seferis)
1971 Anne Sexton (1928-1974), American poet and writer, authored "Transformations." It retold classic fairy stories with a Freudian twist and personal references and formed the basis for Conrad Susa’s 1973 opera of the same name. Diane Middlebrook wrote "Anne Sexton: A Biography" in 1991.
(WSJ, 7/2/97, p.A12)(SFC, 6/23/98, p.D1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Sexton)
1971-1973 Josephine Jacobsen (d.2003), poet, writer and critic, was appointed consultant in poetry to the US Library of Congress.
(SSFC, 7/13/03, p.A27)
1972 Jan 7, Poet John Berryman (b.1914), US poet (Imaginary Jew), leaped to his death from a bridge above the Mississippi River. He was teaching a graduate course at the Univ. of Minnesota on America’s character as revealed by its poets. Carl Rakosi took over the class. His former wife, Eileen Simpson, died in 2002. Simpson authored her memoir "Poets in Their Youth" in 1982.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Berryman)(SFEC, 4/23/00, BR p.1)(SFC, 10/26/02, p.A24)
1972 Jan 8, Kenneth Patchen (b.1911), American poet, died in Palo Alto, Ca. He was bed-ridden in his later years from a debilitating spinal injury. His works included "Before the Brave" and "Hurrah for Anything."
(HN, 12/13/99)(SFC, 3/24/00, p.D6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Patchen)
1972 Feb 5, Marianne Moore (b.1887), American poet, died in NYC. Her longest work was the 1923 poem "Marriage." In 1998 her the book: "The Selected letters of Marianne Moore" was edited by Bonnie Costello, Celeste Goodridge and Cristanne Miller. In 2013 Linda Leavell authored “Holding On Upside Down: The Life and Work of Marianne Moore."
(www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap7/moore.html)(WSJ, 1/8/98, p.A7)(Econ, 11/23/13, p.83)
1972 Nov 1, Ezra Pound (b.1885), American poet, died in Italy. In 2007 A. David Moody authored “Ezra Pound: Poet: The Young Genius 1885-1920."
(Econ, 10/20/07, p.117)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra_Pound)
1973 Aug 17, Conrad Aiken (b.1889), American Pulitzer winning poet and novelist, died.
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/caiken.htm)
1973 Sep 23, Pablo Neruda (b.1904), Chilean Nobel laureate poet, died of alleged leukemia. One of his last works, "The Book of Questions," was published in an English translation in 1991. In 2003 Ilan Stavans edited "The Poetry of Pablo Neruda." In 2004 Matilda Urrutia’s “My Life With Pablo Neruda" was translated into English. Neruda’s driver later said the poet was poisoned by government agents.
(SFEC, 6/25/00, BR p.2)(SSFC, 8/31/03, p.M3)(SSFC, 10/31/04, p.M4)(SFC, 6/1/11, p.A2)
1973 Herbert Leibowitz, Manhattan literary critic and college professor, founded Parnassus, a poetry journal. In 2007 he planned his last issue.
(WSJ, 1/25/07, p.D12)
1974 Jan 13, Salvador Novo (b.1904), gay Mexican writer, poet and official chronicler of Mexico City, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Novo)
1974 Oct 4, Anne Sexton (b.1928), American poet, committed suicide in Massachusetts. In 1991 Diane Middlebrook (1939-2007), authored “Anne Sexton: A Biography."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Sexton)(SSFC, 12/16/07, p.A1)
1974 Berdy Kerbabaev (b.1894), a Turkmenistan poet, novelist and playwright, died. He was one of the most noticeable Turkmen writers of the Soviet period.
(www.advantour.com/turkmenistan/culture.htm)
1975 May 10, In El Salvador leftist poet and novelist Roque Dalton (b.1937) was executed by a group of commandos. In 2010 his relatives petitioned prosecutors to file homicide charges against two ex-rebel commanders, who they claim participated in the decision to kill the writer. The complaint named former Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front leader Joaquin Villalobos and Jorge Melendez, who serves in the current government as head of the civil defense office. In 2012 a judge closed the case ruling it's too late for a prosecution.
(AP, 5/15/10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roque_Dalton)(AP, 1/10/12)
1975 Oct, Eugenio Montale (1896-1981), Italian poet, won the Nobel Prize for Literature. In 1999 two collections of his poetry were translated and published in English: Collected Poems 1920-1954" and "Satura 1962-1970."
(SFEC, 2/28/99, BR p.8)
1975 Nov 1, Pier Paolo Pasolini (b.1922), Italian poet, author and director was murdered. A young male prostitute was tried and convicted for the murder in 1976.
(http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/pasolini.htm)
1977 Sep 12, Robert Lowell (b.1917), US poet (Near the Ocean), died of a heart attack in NYC. In 2003 Frank Bidart and David Gewanter edited "Robert Lowell: Collected Poems." In 2005 Saskia Hamilton edited “The Letters of Robert Lowell."
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/rlowell.htm)(SSFC, 7/13/03, p.M6)(Econ, 7/25/05, p.73)
1977 Polish poet Stanislaw Baranczak co-founded the Workers' Defense Committee (KOR), following a brutal communist crackdown on protesting workers. For his activity he was fired from his job at the Adam Mickiewicz University in his native Poznan and his writings were barred from print in Poland. In 1981 he got a three-year contract as lecturer at Harvard but stayed on.
(AP, 12/27/14)
1977 Vicente Aleixandre (1898-1984), Spanish poet, won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
(AP, 10/8/09)
1979 Feb 9, Allen Tate (b.1899), poet and exponent of the New Criticism, died in Nashville.
(WSJ, 8/2/08, p.W9)(http://tinyurl.com/5g27ry)
1979 Aug 28, Konstantin Simonov (b.1915), Russian war correspondent and poet, died in Moscow. His poems included “Wait For Me" (1942).
(www.simonov.co.uk/biography.htm)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Simonov)
1979 Jul 16, Nguyen Chi Thien (1939-2012), Vietnamese poet, managed to pass 400 of his poems to the British ambassador in Hanoi before being arrested. They were later published as “Flowers of Hell" and won for him the Int’l. Poetry Award in 1985.
(Economist, 10/13/12, p.114)
1979 Oct 6, Elizabeth Bishop (b.1911), American poet, died. She had spent 17 years in Brazil and won a Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1956. In 2008 Thomas Travisano and Saskia Hamilton edited “Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell." In 2010 Michael Sledge authored a novel, “The More I Owe You," based on her life.
(Econ, 11/22/08, p.97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Bishop)(SFC, 8/31/10, p.E1)
1979 Odysseus Elytis (1911-1996), Greek poet, won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
(AP, 10/8/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odysseas_Elytis)
1980 Feb 25, Robert Hayden, American poet and educator, died in Ann Arbor, Mich. Hayden had studied under W.H. Auden at the Univ. of Michigan. In 1976 Pres. Gerald Ford appointed him the 1st African-American consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress, a post that later became known as Poet Laureate.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hayden)(LSA, Fall/02, p.7)
1982 Jan 17, Varlan Shalamov, Russian writer, journalist, poet and Gulag survivor, died in Moscow.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varlam_Shalamov)
1984 Apr 15, William Empson (b.1926), English literary critic and poet, died. His 1950 book, “Seven Types of Ambiguity," changed literary criticism. In 2005 John Haffenden authored “William Empson: Volume I, Among the Mandarins." In 2006 Haffenden completed Vol II, “William Empson: Against the Christians."
(Econ, 6/4/05, p.79)(www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1427)(WSJ, 12/23/06, p.P10)
1984 May 19, John Betjeman (b.1906), British poet, died. In 2004 Bevis Hillier authored a 3-volume biography of Betjeman. In 2006 A.N. Wilson authored a single volume biography.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Betjeman)(WSJ, 12/2/06, p.P8)
1984 The Library of Congress renamed the position of Consultant in Poetry to the title Poet Laureate of the US Library of Congress. The title of the consultant's position was officially changed by Public Law 99-194 to Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry on Dec 20, 1985.
(SFC, 4/6/99, p.E5)(www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0411/poetry.html)
1985 Nov 17, Gheorghe Emil Ursu (b.1926), Romanian construction engineer, poet, diarist and dissident, died after being beaten for weeks by police. Security police had raided his home and discovered his diary, in which he had joted down scathing secret poems by Nina Cassian about Nicolae Ceausescu self-importance and stupidity.
(Econ, 5/17/14, p.86)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gheorghe_Ursu)
1985 Dec 2, Philip Larkin (b.1922), English poet, died of esophageal cancer. He had received the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 1965. His books included “High Windows" (1974). In 2012 “The Complete Poems of Philip Larkin," edited by Archie Burnett, was published.
(WSJ, 12/8/07, p.W18)(Econ, 1/21/12, p.94)(Econ, 1/21/12, p.94)
1985 Dec 20, The passage of US Public Law 99-194 established the position of American Poet Laureate. In 1986 Robert Penn Warren became designated as the 1st Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry.
(www.barclayagency.com/lc_press.html)
1986 Jan, Bob Kaufman, Beat poet, died in San Francisco at 60. He was born in New Orleans and had been called the "black American Rimbaud." His work includes "Cranial Guitar." Much of his work was preserved due to the diligence of his wife Eileen. Kaufman took a vow of silence after the assassination of John F. Kennedy and began speaking again after the Vietnam war ended. His last year was spent under the care of his friend Lyn Wildey.
(SFC, 7/6/96, p.A15)(SFC, 7/20/96, p.A13)(I-witness)
1986 Feb 26, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and author Robert Penn Warren was named the first poet laureate of the US by Librarian of Congress Daniel J. Boorstin. Warren was awarded the post of US poet laureate consultant to the Library of Congress as the name was changed from consultant in poetry.
(SSFC, 7/13/03, p.A27)(AP, 2/26/06)
1986 Jul 25, Marc Smith, NYC construction worker turned poet, held the first poetry slam at the Green Mill jazz club in Chicago. He pitted writers against one another in a test of writing skills and performance.
(Econ, 8/16/08, p.83)(www.slampapi.com/new_site/background.htm)
1987 Oct 22, Nobel prize for literature was awarded to Joseph Brodsky (1940-1996). At an interview in the Stockholm airport, to a question: "You are an American citizen who is receiving the Prize for Russian-language poetry. Who are you, an American or a Russian?", he responded: "I am Jewish".
(http://tinyurl.com/zx2yz)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Brodsky)
1988 Feb 3, Robert Duncan, American poet, died. He and his partner Jess Collins (d.2004) along with Harry Jacobus founded the King Ubu Gallery in SF in 1953.
(SFC, 1/7/04, p.A19)(www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/duncan/life.htm)
1988 Aug 2, Raymond Carver (b.1938), poet, short story writer (Furious Season), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_2)
1989 Sep 15, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Penn Warren (b.1905), the first poet laureate of the United States, died in Stratton, Vt., at age 84. He authored 16 poetry collections and 10 novels that included the 1946 "All the King’s Men."
(WSJ, 2/27/97, p.A15)(AP, 9/14/99)
1990 Seamus Heaney (b.1939), Nobel Prize winning poet (1995), wrote the play "The Cure at Troy" based on Sophocles’ play "Philoctetes."
(WSJ, 12/3/97, p.A20)(www.ibiblio.org/ipa/poems/heaney/biography.php)
1992 Jul 9, Poet Adrienne Rich rejected the US government National Medal for the Arts award due to radical disparities of wealth and power in America.
(SFC, 7/10/97, p.A10)
1992 Jun 14, Mona Van Duyn (1921-2004) became the first woman to be named the nation's poet laureate by the Library of Congress.
(AP, 6/14/97)
1992 Oct 8, Derek Walcott (1930-2013), West Indies born poet (Saint Lucia), was named winner of the Nobel Prize in literature. In 1997 his collection of poems "The Bounty" was published. In 2014 an anthology of his poetry was published.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, BR p.1)(AP, 10/8/97)(Econ, 3/20/10, p.94)(Econ, 4/26/14, p.81)
1992 Audre Lorde (b.1934), American influential black lesbian poet, died of cancer. In 1996 the TV documentary: "A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde was shown." In 2004 Alexis De Veaux authored "Warrior Poet: A biography of Audre Lorde."
(SFC, 6/18/96, p.B7)(SSFC, 4/18/04, p.M2)
1993 Jul 13, A.K. Ramanujan (b.1929), Indian poet and scholar, died in Chicago. In 1999 his collected essays were published.
(WSJ, 4/4/09, p.W8)(www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Ramanujan.html)
1994 Sep 10, Amy Clampitt (b.1920), American poet, died. Her books included “Kingfisher" (1983). In 2005 Willard Spiegelman edited her selected letters: “Love, Amy: The Selected Letters of Amy Clampitt."
(WSJ, 7/22/05, p.W7)(www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=890)
1995 Feb 6, Poet James Merrill (b.1926) died in Tucson, Arizona, from AIDS. In 2001 Alison Lurie authored "Familiar Spirits: A Memoir of James Merrill and David Jackson." In 2015 Langdon Hammer authored James Merrill: Life and Art."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Merrill)(SSFC, 3/11/01, BR p.3)(Econ., 4/18/15, p.75)
1995 Jul 16, Stephen Spender (b.1909), English poet and critic, died. In 2004 John Sutherland authored “Stephen Spender: The Authorized Biography."
(HN, 2/28/01)(Econ, 6/19/04, p.81)
1996 Mar 18, Odysseus Elytis, Greek poet and Nobel Prize winner (1979), died in Athens at age 84.
(WSJ, 3/19/96, p.A-1)(http://dpsinfo.com/dps/mnames.html)
1996 Apr 13, George Mackay Brown (b.1921), Scottish poet and novelist, died in his hometown of Stromness, on the Orkney Mainland. In 2006 Maggie Ferguson authored “George Mackay Brown: The Life."
(Econ, 6/3/06, p.81)(http://tinyurl.com/fdgky)
1997 Apr 5 Allen Ginsberg (b.1926), the counterculture guru who shattered conventions as poet laureate of the Beat Generation, died in New York City at age 70. His last book of poems "Death and Fame: Last Poems 1993-1997" was edited by Bob Rosenthal, Peter Hale and Bill Morgan following his death. In 2000 Bill Morgan edited "Deliberate Prose: Selected Essays 1952-1995." In 2001 David Carter edited "Allen Ginsberg: Spontaneous Mind, The Selected Interviews, 1958-1996." In 2006 Bill Morgan authored “I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg."
(SFEC, 4/6/97, p.A11)(AP, 5/5/97)(WSJ, 4/2/99, p.W6)(SFEC, 5/9/99, BR p.3)(SFEC, 3/5/00, DB p.4)(SSFC, 4/8/01, BR p.2)(SSFC, 11/5/06, p.M1)
1997 Jul 27, Mohammed Mahdi al-Jawahri, classical Arab poet, died in Syria. He was the most famous poet of Iraq from whence he fled in 1979. His work included "Between Passion and Feeling" (1928) and "Al Jawahri’s Divan" (1935).
(SFC, 8/2/97, p.A21)
1998 Jan 27, In Britain poet laureate Ted Hughes won the $33,000 Whitbread Book of the Year award for his "Tales of Ovid."
(SFC, 1/28/98, p.E6)
1998 Jul 28, In Poland Zbigniev Herbert (b.1924), poet and essayist, died at age 73 in Warsaw. He insisted that civilization depended on artists’ staking out clear moral positions resistant to the winds of history and ideology. In 1999 John and Bogdana Carpenter translated "Elegy for the Departure and Other Poems," and "The King of the Ants: Mythological Essays."
(SFC, 7/30/98, p.B2)(SFEC, 3/28/99, BR p.8)
1998 Oct 7, Ted Hughes, poet laureate of England, won the $16,930 Forward Prize for best poetry collection for his "Birthday Letters."
(SFC, 10/8/98, p.E3)
1998 Oct 28, Ted Hughes, British poet, died at age 68. His work included 35 books of poems, 3 works of prose, 2 opera libretti, and 4 stage plays. In 2007 Christopher Reid edited “Letters of Ted Hughes."
(SFC, 10/30/98, p.A17)(Econ, 11/24/07, p.90)
1999 Jul 24, Shoukry Ayyad, Egyptian poetry critic, died at age 78. His 20 books on Arabic poetry, language and theater included "The Hero in Literature and Fables," "Music of Poetry," and Language and Creativity."
(SFC, 7/27/99, p.A17)
2000 Oct 1, Stanley Kunitz (95) succeeded Robert Pinsky as the US poet laureate.
(SFEC, 10/22/00, BR p.2)
2000 Dec 30, Russia’s Pres. Putin endorsed the new national anthem with words by poet Sergei Mikhalkov (1913-2009) and the original Soviet music. Mikhalkov adjusted the text again, replacing references to Lenin and the Soviets with a paean to Russia's "divinely protected" forests and meadows that span from "southern seas to the polar lands."
(SFC, 12/31/00, p.B5)(AP, 8/27/09)
2002 Aug 11, Jiri Kolar (87), a Czech poet and artist known mainly for his pioneering work in the art of collage, died in Prague. His poetry books included "Birth Certificate" (1941)
(AP, 8/12/02)
2002 Aug 15, Larry Rivers (78), painter, sculptor, jazz musician and poet, died in Southampton, NY. Rivers was born as Yitzroch Grossberg in Bronx, NY.
(SFC, 8/16/02, p.A25)(NW, 8/26/02, p.9)
2002 Aug 28, Amiri Baraka, poet known as LeRoi Jones until 1968, was proclaimed the poet laureate for New Jersey. Gov. Jim McGreevey later regretted the proclamation following Baraka's poem "Somebody Blew Up America."
(WSJ, 10/3/02, p.D6)
2002 Tsutomu Yamaguchi (1916-2010), twice-victim of the 1945 nuclear bombs in Japan, published a collection of 31-syllable poems (tanka) that reflected on his WWII ordeal.
(Econ, 1/16/10, p.85)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Yamaguchi)
2003 Apr 5, Kirby Doyle (70), San Francisco Beat poet and writer, died.
(SFC, 5/14/03, p.A17)
2003 Jul 6, Kathleen Raine (95), a poet and scholar whose verse explored the realms of nature and the spirit, died in London. "Stone and Flower" (1943), illustrated by Barbara Hepworth, was her first published collection, followed by "Living in Time" (1946) and "The Pythoness" (1949).
(AP, 7/10/03)
2003 Aug 7, F.T. Prince (90), South African poet, died in Southampton, England. His work included the WWII poem "Soldiers Bathing."
(SFC, 8/13/03, p.A23)
2003 Aug 16, Haroldo de Campos (73), Brazilian poet, died in Sao Paulo. He was the best know of the Brazilian Concrete poets.
(SFC, 8/26/03, p.A19)
2003 Aug 28, The US Library of Congress said it would name Louise Gluck as the nation's poet laureate. Her 9 books included "The Wild Iris" (1992).
(SFC, 8/29/03, p.A3)
2003 Nov 3, Rasul Gamzatov, Dagestan poet, died in Moscow. He wrote in Avar, a language spoken by some 500,000 people in Dagestan. He also wrote the prose work "My Dagestan."
(SFC, 11/4/03, p.A21)
2003 Nov 4, Charles Causley (86), English poet, died.
(Econ, 11/22/03, p.85)
2003 Dec 12, Fadwa Toukan (b.1917), Palestinian poet, died in Nablus at age 86.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.A31)
2003 Felix Dennis, publisher of Maxim magazine, published his 1st volume of poetry “A Glass Half Full."
(WSJ, 2/6/04, p.A6)
2004 Feb 6, It was reported that John Barr, a Wall Street banker, was named president of the Chicago-based Poetry Foundation. He replaced Joseph Parisi.
(WSJ, 2/6/04, p.A6)(SSFC, 6/27/04, p.M2)
2004 Mar 12, Natan Yonatan (81), Israeli poet, died near Tel Aviv.
(SFC, 3/13/04, p.B8)
2004 Apr 25, Thom Gunn (b.1929), British-born poet, died in SF at age 74. His 1st book, titled "Fighting Terms" (1954), was recognized as part of the British group called "The Movement." He moved from England to America in 1954 to live with his male lover and explore the California culture.
(SFC, 4/28/04, p.B7)(Econ, 5/8/04, p.83)
2004 Jun 3, Eugene Ruggles (b.1935), SF poet, died in Petaluma, Ca. His books included “Lifeguard in the Snow" (1977).
(SFC, 6/4/04, B6)
2004 Jun 24, Carl Rakosi (100), American poet, died in SF.
(SFC, 7/2/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 13, Christopher Hewitt (58), disabled gay poet, died. He was among the many poets to have read at the Café Babar.
(SFC, 7/21/04, p.B7)
2004 Aug 12, Ted Kooser of Lincoln, Nebraska, replaced Louise Gluck as US poet laureate.
(SFC, 8/13/04, p.E20)
2004 Aug 14, Czeslaw Milosz (93), Polish poet and Nobel laureate (1980), died in Krakow. He was known for his intellectual and emotional works about some of the worst cruelties of the 20th century. Milosz was born on June 30, 1911, in Szetejnie, now Lithuania, and studied law at the University in Vilnius. There, he published his first book of poems, "Three Winters," in 1936. In 2006 Cynthia L. Haven edited the book “Czeslaw Milosz: Conversations."
(AP, 8/14/04)(Econ, 8/21/04, p.72)(SSFC, 9/24/06, p.M5)
2004 Oct 21, Anthony Hecht (81), American poet, died in Washington DC.
(WSJ, 10/26/04, p.D8)
2004 Dec 2, Mona Van Duyn (b.1921), US poet laureate (1992), died at her home in University City, Missouri.
(SFC, 12/4/04, p.B7)
2005 Mar 7, Philip Lamantia (77), SF Surrealist poet, died in North Beach. His 9 books included “Erotic Poems" (1946).
(SFC, 3/11/05, p.B7)
2005 Mar 30, Robert Creeley (b.1926), US poet, died in Odessa, Texas.
(SFC, 4/1/05, p.B7)
2005 May 25, Steve Mason (65), considered the poet laureate of the Vietnam War, died in Ashland, Ore. His books included “Johnny’s Song: Poetry of a Vietnam Veteran" (1986).
(SFC, 5/31/05, p.B4)
2005 Jun 9, Richard Eberhart (101), Pulitzer Prize winning poet, died in New Hampshire.
(http://tinyurl.com/d72om)
2005 Jul 7, Gustaf Sobin (69), American-born writer and poet, died in France. His work included the 2000 novel “The Fly-Truffler."
(SFC, 7/13/05, p.B7)
2006 Jun, A fax informed Donald Hall (77), former poet laureate of New Hampshire, that he would be the next poet laureate of the US.
(AP, 6/14/06)
2006 Sep 1, Hungarian poet Gyorgy Faludy (95), a legend of resistance to the rise of Nazism and Communism, died at his home in Budapest. He spent 1950-1953 in the Stalinist concentration camp at Recsk. Faludy won international fame with his autobiographical novel "My Happy Days in Hell" in the 1960s, which related his escape from fascist Hungary and his return, and imprisonment, in a country under communist rule.
(Reuters, 9/2/06)(Econ, 9/16/06, p.96)
2006 Edith Grossman published “The Golden Age: Poems of the Spanish Renaissance," her English translations from the original Spanish works of 8 poets.
(SSFC, 9/3/06, p.M3)
2006 Abu Dhabi’s government Authority for Culture and Heritage launched The Million's Poet to encourage poetry.
(AP, 3/23/10)
2007 Jul 15, Mahmoud Darwish, the world's most recognized Palestinian poet, delivered a stinging tirade against Palestinian infighting in his first public appearance in decades in the Israeli city of Haifa.
(AP, 7/16/07)
2007 Jul 18, Sekou Sundiata (b.1948), black poet and activist born as Robert Franklin Feaster, died of heart failure in Westchester, NY.
(SFC, 7/28/07, p.B5)
2007 Nov 8, Samina Malik (23), who called herself the "Lyrical Terrorist" and penned poems with titles including "How To Behead," became the first woman to be convicted under Britain’s terrorism legislation.
(AFP, 11/8/07)
2007 Nov 15, Berkeley poet Robert Haas won the National Book Award for his recent collection “Time and Materials."
(SFC, 11/16/07, p.A2)
2007 Dec 15, Diane Middlebrook (b.1939), poet, biographer and teacher, died in SF. Her books included “Anne Sexton: A Biography" (1991).
(SSFC, 12/16/07, p.A1)
2007 Juan Gelman (b.1930), Argentine poet, won the Cervantes Prize, the most prestigious award for Spanish-language literature.
(AP, 8/28/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Gelman)
2008 Jan 12, Angel Gonzalez (82), one of Spain's most prominent poets and member of a literary generation known for its opposition to the dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco, died.
(AP, 1/14/08)
2008 Jan 16, In New Zealand Hone Tuwhare (86), the first Maori poet to be published in English and one of New Zealand's most celebrated verse writers, died.
(AP, 1/17/08)
2008 Mar 22, Michael Kassel (54), San Francisco blues musician (the Hellhounds) poet known as Vampyre Mike, died after a long illness. His books included “Graveyard Golf" and “Going for the Low Blow."
(SSFC, 4/20/08, p.B6)
2008 Apr 17, Aime Cesaire (b.1913), a Martinique poet honored throughout the French-speaking world and a crusader for West Indian rights, died.
(AP, 4/17/08)
2008 Aug 9, Mahmoud Darwish (67), a Palestinian poet, died, died in Houston, Texas. His poetry eloquently told of his people's experiences of exile, occupation and infighting. His 1973 work “Journal of an Ordinary Grief" was translated to English in 2010.
(AP, 8/10/08)(Econ, 8/23/08, p.75)(Econ, 10/23/10, p.103)
2008 Sep 28, Konstantin Pavlov (b.1933), Bulgarian poet and screenwriter, died. He was among the few Bulgarian intellectuals who dared to assert their professional independence during the 1945-89 communist regime. Some of his most popular volumes of poetry are "Sweet Agony" (1991), "The Murder of the Sleeping Man" (1992) and "A Long Time Ago..." (1998).
(AP, 9/30/08)
2008 Oct 21, Jordanian police arrested a local writer for incorporating verses of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, into his love poetry. Islam Samhan, published his collection of poems, "Grace like a Shadow," without the approval of the Jordanian government, and authorities said it insults the holy book.
(AP, 10/21/08)
2009 Jan 5, Turkey restored the citizenship of its most famous poet Monday in a symbolic step meant to show it was addressing criticism of its human rights record in hopes of joining the European Union. Turkey had stripped Nazim Hikmet of his nationality in 1951 at the height of the Cold War because of his communist views, branded him a traitor and imprisoned him for more than a decade. He died in exile in Moscow in 1963.
(AP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 18, Moldovan poet Grigore Vieru (b.1935) died in a car crash. He was admired for his courage in promoting Romanian, the country's native language, when Moldova was a Soviet republic. In the 1970s, he wrote "The Little Bee," Moldova's first Romanian-language school manual for young children.
(AP, 1/19/09)
2009 Feb 20, Christopher Nolan (43), an Irish poet and novelist, died in Dublin. He had refused to let cerebral palsy get in the way of his writing. Using a "unicorn stick" strapped to his forehead to tap the keys of a typewriter, Nolan laboriously wrote out messages and, eventually, poems and books as well. His autobiography, "Under the Eye of the Clock: The Life Story of Christopher Nolan," won the prestigious Whitbread Award in 1988.
(AP, 2/22/09)(Econ, 2/28/09, p.91)
2009 Apr 28, Ursula Askham Fanthorpe (b.1929), a highly regarded English poet, died near her home in Wotton-under-Edge in western England. She was first inspired by the human tragedy she saw in a neurological hospital.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 May 1, Britain awarded the role of national poet laureate to Carol Ann Duffy (53), the first woman to hold a post that has been filled by William Wordsworth, Alfred Lord Tennyson and Ted Hughes. Duffy, a gay woman, has published more than 30 books, plays and children's stories as well as poems that mix accessible modern language with traditional forms.
(AP, 5/1/09)(SFC, 5/2/09, p.A3)
2009 Jun 3, David Bromige (75), London-born poet and former Sonoma State Univ. professor, died in Sebastopol, Ca. He was Sonoma County’s 2nd poet laureate (2001-2003).
(SFC, 6/17/09, p.B4)
2010 Mar 17, In Abu Dhabi Hissa Hilal, only her eyes visible through her black veil, delivered a blistering poem against Muslim preachers "who sit in the position of power" but are "frightening" people with their fatwas, or religious edicts, and "preying like a wolf" on those seeking peace. She presented her 15-verse poem on the live TV “The Million's Poet" program.
(AP, 3/23/10)
2010 May 30, Peter Orlovsky (76), poet and partner of Allen Ginsberg, died in Vermont.
(SFC, 6/3/10, p.C5)
2010 Nov 3, Purushottama Lal (81), Indian poet and publisher, died. He published some 3,500 titles of Indian writers in English.
(Econ, 11/13/10, p.105)
2011 Jan 17, John Ross (72), US poet, author, journalist and political activist who lived in Mexico and wrote extensively on its leftist political movements, died of liver cancer. His books included "Rebellion from the Roots: Zapatista Uprising in Chiapas."
(AP, 1/18/11)
2011 Aug 22, Samuel Menashe (85), New York City poet, died.
(Econ, 9/3/11, p.87)
2011 Oct 6, The Nobel Prize in literature was awarded to Sweden’s top poet Tomas Transtromer (80).
(AP, 10/7/11)
2011 Dec 2, Christopher Logue (85), English poet, died.
(Econ, 12/17/11, p.166)
2011 Jack Foley (71), Oakland, Ca., poet, authored “Visions and Affiliations: A California Literary Time Line Part One," a 1,300 page chrono-encyclopedia of Bay Area poets and poetry.
(SFC, 8/20/11, p.E1)
2011 Liao Yiwu, exiled Chinese poet, published his memoir “For a Song and a Hundred Sons: A Poet’s Journey Thjrough a Chinese Prison" in Taiwan and Germany. Earlier versions were were seized by police in 1995 and 2001. It was translated to english in 2013.
(SSFC, 7/7/13, p.F4)
2012 Jan 17, In China Zhu Yufu (58), a writer and democracy advocate, was charged with subversion in Hangzhou for writing a poem urging citizens to gather to defend their freedoms. In February Yufu was sentenced to 7 years in prison.
(SFC, 1/18/12, p.A3)(SFC, 2/11/12, p.A2)
2012 Feb 1, In Poland Wislawa Szymborska (b.1923), Nobel-winning poet (1996), died. She published fewer than 400 poems.
(AP, 2/9/12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wis%C5%82awa_Szymborska)
2012 Mar 27, Adrienne Rich (b.1929), American feminist poet, died in her Santa Cruz, Ca., home after a long struggle with rheumatoid arthritis.
(SFC, 3/29/12, p.A1)
2012 Jun 7, The US Library of Congress named Natasha Trethewey, Mississippi’s top poet, as the nation’s poet laureate.
(SFC, 6/7/12, p.A9)
2012 Oct 2, Nguyen Chi Thien (73), Vietnamese poet, died in Orange County, Ca. In 1979 he managed to pass 400 of his poems to the British ambassador in Hanoi before being arrested. They were later published as “Flowers of Hell" and won for him the Int’l. Poetry Award in 1985.
(Economist, 10/13/12, p.114)
2012 Nov 13, Jack Gilbert (b.1925), American lyrical poet, died in Berkeley.
(SFC, 11/14/12, p.C3)
2012 Nov 29, Qatari poet Muhammad ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami was sentenced to life in prison for an Arab Spring-inspired verse that officials claim insulted Qatar's emir and encouraged the ruler's overthrow. Al-Ajami was jailed in November 2011, months after an Internet video was posted of him reciting "Tunisian Jasmine." His life sentence was later cut on appeal to 15 years.
(AP, 11/29/12)(Econ, 12/7/13, p.63)
2013 Apr 8, Chilean forensic experts exhumed the body of Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda, trying to solve a four-decade mystery about the 1973 death of one the greatest poets of the 20th century.
(AP, 4/8/13)
2013 Aug 30, Seamus Heaney (74), Ireland's foremost poet and Nobel Prize winner (1995), died in Dublin after a half-century exploring the beauty of Ireland and the political torment within the nation's soul.
(AP, 8/30/13)
2013 Sep 25, The body of poet Kofi Awoonor (78) was returned to Ghana. He was among the 72 civilians shot down by Islamic extremists at the Westgate mall in Nairobi. He had come Nairobi to take part in a literary festival.
(AP, 9/25/13)
2013 Nov 29, Russian poet Natalia Gorbanevskaya (77) died in Paris. She was among the eight demonstrators arrested in in 1968 in Moscow’s Red Square for protesting the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
(Econ, 12/7/13, p.94)
2013 Dec 3, Egyptian poet Ahmed Fouad Negm (84), renowned for his revolutionary poetry and outspoken criticism of Arab political leaders, died. He became recognized as a voice of protest in 1967 when he wrote poems on the Arab-Israeli war, which were highly acclaimed.
(AFP, 12/3/13)
2014 Jan 9, Amiri Baraka (b.1934), poet, playwright and black nationalist, died in New Jersey. He was born as Everett LeRoi Jones and changed his name in 1965 following the assassination of Malcolm X. His play “Dutchman" won the 1964 Obie Award for best American play.
(SFC, 1/10/14, p.D5)
2014 Jan 14, In Mexico Juan Gelman, the celebrated Argentine poet and fierce critic of the South American nation's "dirty war" against leftists, died in Mexico City.
(Reuters, 1/14/14)
2014 Apr 14, Romanian poet and translator Nina Cassian (89) died in NYC. She had obtained political asylum in the US after the Communist-era secret police found her critical poems scribbled in a friend's diary.
(AP, 4/16/14)(Econ, 5/17/14, p.86)
2014 May 28 Maya Angelou (b.1928), American poet, writer and civil rights activist, died at her home in Winston-Salem, NC. Her 1969 memoir “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" was the first of her seven memoirs.
(SFC, 5/29/14, p.A11)(Econ, 6/7/14, p.98)
2014 Aug 19, Iranian poet Simin Behbahani (87) died.
(Econ, 8/30/14, p.78)
2014 Aug 27, Bulgarian poet Valeri Petrov (born as Valeri Nissim Mevorah in 1920), died. His many translations included the complete works of Shakespeare.
(AP, 8/27/14)
2014 Oct 9, Poet Carolyn Kizer (89), 1985 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her collection “Yin," died in Sonoma, Ca.
(SSFC, 10/12/14, p.C8)
2014 Nov 28, Saeed Akl (b.1912), Lebanon's leading poet, died. Some of his most famous poems were sung by Lebanon's top singer, Fayrouz, including the emotional "Take Me Back to My Country," a song that was played endlessly on radios during the country's 15-year civil war.
(AP, 11/28/14)
2014 Nov 29, Mark Strand, former US poet laureate (1990-1991), died in Brooklyn. He won a 1999 Pulitzer Prize for his collection “Blizzard of One."
(SSFC, 11/30/14, p.A14)
2014 Dec 26, Former Harvard lecturer Stanislaw Baranczak (68), Poland's outstanding poet, translator and dissident, died at his home near Boston, Mass.
(AP, 12/27/14)
2015 Jan 26, Eileen Kaufman (93), former wife of SF Beat poet Bob Kaufman (d.1986), died at a senior home in Richmond, Ca. It was her efforts got Bob Kaufman’s collection: “Solitudes Crowded With Loneliness" published in 1965.
(SFC, 2/4/15, p.D2)
2015 Jan 28, American poet Steve Sanfield (b.1937), founder of the Sierra Storytelling Festival, died at his home on the San Juan Ridge in Nevada Ct., Ca. His work included 30 books.
(SFC, 2/12/15, p.D3)
2015 Jan 29, Rod McKuen (b.1933), poet and song-writer, died in Beverly Hills. His work included some 200 albums and over 30 collections of poetry. Some of his best-known songs, including “If You Go Away" and “Seasons in the Sun" were written with Belgian composer Jacques Brell.
(SFC, 1/30/15, p.A10)
2015 Mar 26, Tomas Transtromer (83), Swedish poet and Nobel laureate (2011), died.
(SFC, 3/28/15, p.A2)
2015 May 14, Franz Wright (62), American Pulitzer Prize winning poet, died in Waltham, Mass. He was the son of James Wright, another Pulitzer Prize winning poet.
(SFC, 5/16/15, p.A6)
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